The Anambra governorship election has been declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
This was made known by none other than the Anambra State INEC Returning Officer for the election, Florence Obi, the Vice-Chancellor of University of Calabar, around 12:20 a.m. on Monday.
She said this was because there was no election in Ihiala Local Government Area which has 326 polling units and over 148,000 registered voters that can swing the election to any angle.
According to the Obi, the voting materials were not deployed to Ihiala because of the security threat.
The candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Charles Soludo, scored a total of 103,946 votes which makes it possible for him to win the election in 18 out of the 21 Gocal Government areas of the state.
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Valentine Ozigbo scored 51,322 and won in only one local government area.
She said: “Based on constitutional consideration and provisions of the Electoral Act as well as the Revised Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections issued by the commission, supplementary election is indicated for Ihiala Local Government Area.
“Section 179 (3) of the Constitution provides that a rerun election shall take place if no candidate meets the requirement of sub-section 2. Such a run-off shall be between the candidate with the highest number of votes and one among the remaining candidates who secured a majority of votes in the highest number of Local Government Areas in the state”
“Clause 47 of the Revised Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections provides that supplementary elections shall be conducted where the commission due to logistic challenges is unable to deploy on Election Day.
“Given the foregoing, it becomes imperative to bring Ihiala Local Government Area at par with the other 20 local government areas in this election before we can make a valid declaration in this election or take any further action based on the extant laws.
“Therefore, it is important to complete the election in Ihiala to make this determination.
“Therefore, I, Professor Florence Banku Obi, in my capacity as Returning Officer for this election, hereby announce the suspension of the process of collation of results and declaration of a winner until a supplementary election is held in the 326 polling units in Ihiala Local Government Area of the state.”
“I have conferred with the commission, being the body that fixes the date for the election, and the commission has decided that the supplementary election will take place on Tuesday, 9th November 2021. Therefore, the collation of results shall resume thereafter.”
So, on this note according to Obi, INEC has decided to conduct a supplementary election in the 326 polling units across Ihiala.
