PDP Retains Enugu As Peter Mbah Wins Guber Poll

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has retained Enugu State following the declaration of Peter Mbah as the winner of the governorship election in the state.

Peter Mbah of the PDP was declared winner of last Saturday’s guber poll on Wednesday night after the results of the controversial Nkanu East Local Government Area results were collated.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), state Collation and Returning Officer, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, said that Mbah polled a total of 160,895 votes to defeat the closest contender, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party, who polled a total of 157,552 votes.

Iwe, who is the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Umudike, said, “That Mbah of the PDP having scored the highest number of votes cast and having satisfied the requirements of the law is hereby declared the winner and he is returned elected.”

According to him, the total number of registered voters in Enugu State is 2,112,793; the Number of accredited voters is 381,971. The total valid votes cast is 358,463; Rejected votes are 9,088 while the Total votes cast are 367,551.

On Monday, INEC suspended the collation of results and declaration of the winner of the poll following allegations of over-voting and results manipulation in Nkanu East and Nsukka Local Government Areas of the state.

This followed objections and allegations made by the Labour Party State agent, Dr. Eugene Edeoga, and that of the PDP State collation agent, Dr. Festus Uzo that of electoral malpractices.

Edeoga alleged that the result of Nkanu East Local Government was heavily padded to manipulate the outcome of the election in favour of the PDP candidate and insisted the result should be cancelled.

Uzo on the other hand, alleged similar malpractice in Nsukka LGA, where the candidate of the labour party was leading with over 30,000 votes.

These claims, allegations, and protests by the two parties forced the INEC national headquarters to suspend the collation to review the results of the two local government areas in the issue.

However, on Wednesday night, the INEC returning officer, Prof Iwe said “this afternoon I was requested to return to Enugu that the commission has concluded and resolved the issues in Nsukka and Nkanu East. We received a particular petition about Nsukka and Nkanu East local government.

“The petition against Nsukka was overruled by the commission. However, the petition about Nkanu East was sustained.

“The commission found that there was over-voting. From 30,350 the commission reduced it to 16,956 votes for PDP.

“The Labour Party was 1,855, after review, it became 1,864 votes that is the summary of what happened in Abuja. And based on the fact that the petition of Nkanu East is sustained we call on the collation officer of Nkanu East to come forward to collate the results of the Nkanu East.”

In his reaction, the labour party agent, Dr. Eugene Edeoga, said “I am glad that the case made against Nsukka is not sustained. And the case made against Nkanu East was sustained.

“However, the rule is that when over-voting is established and the non-use of BVAS in the election had been established, the penalty is a cancellation. I want to ask whether the rules have changed.”

The returning officer, however, said that this is the decision of the electoral commission.

Conclusively, the PDP candidate won nine local governments while his Labour Party counterpart won eight local government areas.

With this victory, PDP has now retained the Enugu state since the coming of democracy in 1999. The state has produced PDP governors namely Chimaroke Nnamani, Sullivan Chime, current governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, and now, governor-elect, Peter Mbah.

Meanwhile, Kanyi Daily reported that Labour Party’s Alex Otti has been declared the winner of the Abia State governorship election.

Otti was declared the winner on Wednesday after scoring 175,467 in the election. Okey Ahiwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came in second with 88,529.