The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed April 25 for the re-run of the governorship and state assembly elections in Imo and Abia States where elections were declared as inconclusive due to irregularities observed in the two states.
Addressing journalists at the INEC headquarters, Owerri, on Wednessday, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Gabriel Adah, said the result of the governorship election was not clear enough to have an outright winner. In the 23 local government areas of Imo State, valid votes cancelled were about 145,000 much higher than the margin of winning which was put at 79,000 votes.
According to him, the inconclusiveness was as a result of non-functionality of card readers, violence and snatching of ballot boxes. “It would be wrong under such situation if a winner was declared.”
He said the election would therefore take place in 250 polling booths across the 23 local government areas of the state on Saturday, April 25.
In the same vein, he said the state House of Assembly was also inconclusive in six state constituencies namely: Ikeduru, Isiala Mbano, Oru East, Oguta, Isu and Owerri West.
The results of the assembly election released so far showed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had won four while the All Progressives Congress (APC) won 16 state constituencies, adding that a re-run would take place in seven local government areas on the same date with the governorship election.
Adah explained that there would be a fresh accreditation of voters, adding that the commission would use card reader to do the verification, “but if the card reader fails, you must go through incident form as any other manual accreditation will not be accepted.”