The Resident Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Benue State, Prof. Istifanus Dafwang, yesterday blamed the annulment of Senator David Mark’s election on the ‘carelessness of collation officer.’
Mark, a former Senate President had won the March 28 election which he contested on the platform of Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) against Daniel Onjeh of All Progressives Congress (APC) but the Appeal Court sacked him on grounds that he was declared winner while the results were still being collated.
Prof. Dafwang had during a stakeholders meeting in Makurdi, yesterday, regretted that the action of the collation officer had cost INEC extra resources as it prepares to conduct a repeat election in compliance with the court order.
“The problem which led to the annulment of the Benue South senatorial election was not the voting. It was a problem caused by the collation officer, he was just careless. We will, in the coming rerun recruit collation officers who had performed creditably in the past election,” he said.
Dafwang therefore appealed to all stakeholders to play the game according to the rules during the fresh exercise, expected to hold on February 20.
He said the commission has decided to adopt simultaneous accreditation and voting process for the election which will commence at 8am and end at 2pm.
Meanwhile, the commissioner intimated that 592,000 voters are expected to participate in the exercise in 1204 voting units across the 23 local government areas in the district.
Leave a Reply