The Independent National Electoral Commission will this (Wednesday) evening resume its collation of results for the governorship elections conducted last Saturday in Enugu and Abia states.

While Abia results collation will commence at 4pm, the Enugu collation is scheduled to resume at 5pm.

INEC announced the suspension of the result collation for the two states in the South-East on Monday to review the situations.

The suspension came following allegations of irregularities, especially over-voting in some areas.

In Abia, less than 27,000 voters were accredited in Obingwa via the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines. But there were reports that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party polled over 100,000 votes from the council.

The main opposition Labour Party,  which was already leading with over 93,000 votes from the declared results of 16 out of 17 LGAs in the state, cried foul, alleging that the ‘mystery figures’ were cooked by the ruling party.

While results from 16 LGAs had been formally declared at the INEC Collation Centre, Obingwa result was yet to be presented when the directive from INEC headquarters in Abuja came for the exercise to be suspended.

In Enugu, PDP’s Peter Mbah and Labour Party’s Chijioke Edeoga were in tight race when the result collation was halted.

INEC National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, said results from Nkanu East and Nsukka LGAs were suspended for further review.

Similarly, INEC suspended the collation of results in Obingwa LGA of Abia State where he noted that its office was invaded by thugs on Sunday.

The Gombe State Police Command has debunked a rumour on social media that it apprehended members of a political party in the State thumbprinting ballot papers ahead of the Saturday’s Governorship and State Assembly elections in the State.

Spokesperson of the Command, Mahid Muazu Abubakar, in a press release issued to journalists on Friday, described the insinuations as a false alarm.

According to him, the said party members were only conducting mock election to educate their supporters on how to thumbprint on ballots on the election day in order to avoid invalid votes.

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“The news going round on social media platforms that some agents of a certain political party were apprehended in Gombe State thumb-printing ballot papers ahead of the gubernatorial election was fake.

“Police investigation reveals that supporters of the political party were using sample ballot papers to educate their would-be voters on how to vote for their candidate, which was written boldly on the sample ballot.

“Given the foregoing, the Command urges the public to disregard the news because it was not only misleading but also a figment of the imagination of mischief makers who are bent on causing chaos in the State.

“The Command equally enjoins the public to desist from spreading unverified information, please,” the PPRO stated.

The National Security Adviser (NSA) Babagana Monguno has warned those planning to foment trouble in the Saturday’s governorship and state assembly elections.

He spoke at a meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security at the Commission’s headquarters on Tuesday.

Monguno said, “Anybody who is itching to undermine this process should please think again because it is not in the person’s interest and not in the interest of the country. We will continue to work round the clock and all the crisis centres will be open.”

Although he noted that Saturday’s elections would come with its dynamics, the security agents had been placed on red alert to deal with any  breach.

He said, “Of course, the elections we are going into on Saturday are going to be more complicated. We are going to have 1,021 constituencies, meaning that we are going to have more people voting, more collation centres and obviously, the dynamics will be much more different from the elections we just concluded.”

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof Mahmood Yakubu also at the forum asked parties and political stakeholders to warn their supporters against any act of violence.