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FCT Elections: APC Agent Faults Kuje Area Council Results, Alleges Over-Voting

But the collation officer denied the allegation, saying that BVAS was used for accreditation.


The collation officer (right) denied the claim by the APC agent (second-right).

 

As the collation of results of the chairmanship election in Kuje Area Council resumed on Sunday, a representative of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has alleged that there was overvoting in Gudun Karya Ward.

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Haruna Jatau, who represents the APC, objected to the election results presented by the collation officer, Zubairu Mohammed, citing election breaches in two polling units in the ward.

 

According to Jatau, there was overvoting in Zagabutu village, while in Huni village, voters were accredited manually instead of using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

“The APC rejects the election results from Gudun Karya,” he said.

Responding, the collation officer, Mohammed, denied the allegation, saying that BVAS was used for accreditation across Gudun Karya Ward.

However, the collation officer said he received a report from the polling officer in Huni that some thugs loyal to a particular political party had coerced him into rewriting the election results to favour their party.

According to him, the polling officer, under duress, yielded to the pressure and rewrote the results.

He noted, however, that the results were later corrected to reflect what was captured by the BVAS.

Reacting to the situation, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) supervising Kuje Area Council, Abubakar Dambu, frowned at the cancellations on the result sheets.

He, however, urged the APC representative to put his complaint in writing to the INEC office.

There was a heavy security presence at the INEC collation centre located in Soka, Kuje, as officials of the electoral umpire, election observers and monitors, as well as members of the media, converged for the continuation of the process, which was reportedly disrupted by hoodlums on Saturday.