INEC Denies Issuing A Directive To Skew The Results Of The Abia Governorship election

INEC stated that its Chairman never called the Returning Officer to issue a directive that deviated from its approved guidelines.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied a report that its Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, gave a directive to distort the collation of Abia governorship election results.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, advised the public to disregard the story as fake news.

Mr Oyekanmi stated that Mr Yakubu never called the Returning Officer to give her a directive that contradicted the commission’s approved guidelines.

“Rather, the Returning Officer wanted the official communication on the Commission’s decision to suspend the collation of results in Abia State.

“The Chairman then directed that pending the delivery of the hard copies, the soft copies of the Commission’s letter be forwarded immediately to the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Enugu State and the Administrative Secretary of Abia State.

“The Returning Officer for Abia State then directed that the contents of the letter be read aloud by the Administrative Secretary in the presence of agents of political parties, observers, the media, and security personnel at the Collation Centre,” the report said.

“This is what is now being mischievously interpreted as a directive to the returning officer on some phantom criteria at variance with the approved guidelines. Nothing like that exists,” Mr Oyekanmi stated.

“In fact, the content of the letter is basically the same as the Commission’s press release dated Monday March 20th, which has since been uploaded to the Commission’s social media platforms and is already in the public domain,” Mr Oyekanmi added.

“The general public should dismiss the story as fake news,” he said.

According to Strenuous Blog, the state returning officer claimed that she was forced to do the wrong thing.

It was reported that Yakubu personally called INEC Presiding Officer in Abia State, Nnenna Oti, and gave her directives on guidelines to follow in ensuring that Abia governorship election results were collated based on some criteria.

According to the blog, the Returning Officer stated that she had decided on her own that the will of Abia voters would not be subverted under her watch.

(NAN)