There was drama at the national collation centre in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital on Tuesday morning, as Elder Godsday Orubebe, a former Minister, engaged in a protest barring the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, from proceeding with the announcement of the results.
Orubebe, an agent of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defied every attempt to calm him and insisted that unless Jega acted on a petition from the PDP, he would not allow any further announcement of results.
Orubebe had taken the microphone and accused Jega of being partisan and that he had compromised because he failed to act on the petition submitted by another agent of the PDP against the poll result from some northern states.
He said while Jega acted fast on the petition from the APC concerning Rivers, he failed to act on the one from the PDP.
He did not however state what was contained in the petition, but said when his colleague sent a message to Jega to inform him of the petition, Jega replied that he could not take any petition.
He also said Jega must explain how the APC got the result it published on the party’s website, a copy which Orubebe had with him.
After over 30 minutes of grounding the collation process, Orubebe’s colleagues convinced him to allow Jega respond to the allegations.
In his reply, Jega said the petition from the PDP was not submitted through the right channel.
He said the man who brought the petition should have submitted it to the Secretary of INEC and not Jega’s Personal Assistant as the agent did.
Jega said the PDP agent climbed to where the PA was recording figures and gave him the petition, which was against standard.
He said when the PA later met him, the PA said the PDP agent said he had met Jega and Jega asked him to give the petition to the PA.
Jega said he told his PA that he did not meet the PDP agent and that he should return the petition to the agent and ask him to pass through the right channel.
He also said he explained this to the petitioner in a text message he sent to him and wondered why Orubebe, an elder and former minister had decided to embarrass himself in such manner.
He then warned Orubebe to be mindful of how conducts himself in public.
On the petition from the APC about Rivers State, Jega said the petition came on Sunday and that he set up a panel to investigate.
He submitted that the panel report showed that election held in the state and that INEC would release the result.
Before he announced a 30-minute break, INEC released results from seven states as shown below:
In Ebonyi, APC scored 657,678 while the PDP had 149, 222
In Niger State, APC scored 657,678 against PDP’s 149,222
Also, in Lagos State, the APC led with 792,460 against the PDP which polled 632,327.
In Bayelsa, the PDP scored 361,209 votes to beat the APC which had 4,194 votes.
In Gombe State, APC won with 361,245 against PDP’s 96,873.
In Cross River State, PDP won with 414,863 against PDP’s 28,368.
In Rivers, PDP led with 1,487,075 against APC’s 69,238.
