The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared the Kogi West senatorial district election inconclusive. The returning officer for the election Professor Olayinde Lawal said the margin between the two leading candidates – Smart Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress and People’s Democratic Party’s Dino Melaye – is lower than the total number of votes cancelled. Adeyemi, currently in the lead, polled 80,118 votes while Senator Melaye got 59,548 votes. Adeyemi won in six out of the seven local government areas in the district.
Even before INEC declared the elections inconclusive, Melaye had rejected the results from what he described as an “Helicopter election” alleging that helicopters hovered around polling units in Lokoja area of Kogi State dropping bullets on innocent, harmless citizens to scare them from voting. Melaye posited that it will be logical for the collation of results be stopped since the missing ballot boxes are yet to be recovered.
Voting was cancelled in 53 polling units in 20 registration areas in the senatorial district. A total of 43,127 registered voters were affected by the cancellation. That number is greater than 20,570, which is the margin between Adeyemi and Melaye. INEC is yet to announce the date for the rerun election in the PUs where voting was cancelled.
Kabba/Bunu LGA
APC-15,037
PDP-8,974
Ijumu LGA
APC-11,627
PDP-7,647
Kogi/Koton Karfe LGA
APC-14,168
PDP-9,786
Mapo/Muro LGA
APC-4,874
PDP-3,704
Yagba East LGA
APC-6,683
PDP-7,745
Yagba West LGA
APC-7,941
PDP-8,980
Lokoja LGA
APC-19,788
PDP-12,712
