Anastasia Okechukwu Reporting
The People Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council, Enugu State chapter has disagree with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on it decision to suspend the announcement of result and declaration of Peter Mbah as the winner of the Governorship election, stressing that the election management body was overreaching itself, as it could not, by law, suspend the declaration of an already collated result, insisting that INEC was wrong to present the Abia and Enugu cases as the same.
According to daily post, The party stated these at a press conference addressed by the spokesperson of the Enugu State PDP Campaign Council in Enugu on Monday.
Part of the Statement reads: “Putting the Abia and Enugu situations in one basket clearly shows that the national headquarters of INEC is mixing things up or has not been properly briefed. There is absolutely nothing like outstanding local governments as far as the collation process in Enugu State is concerned.
“Unlike the situation in Abia State, the results of the entire 17 LGAs of Enugu State, including those of Nkanu East and Nsukka LGAs, have been fully collated by the Returning Officer, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, on Sunday the 19th of March. What remains for the INEC is to sum up the returns by the Local Government Returning Officers and declare our candidate, Dr. Mbah the governor-elect.
“That is why we are saying that INEC is overreaching itself; they have no powers at this stage to suspend the pronouncement or declaration of the winner of the election, which is our candidate.
“Section 64(8) of the Electoral Act 2022 provides that where collation has been completed as in the present case of Enugu State, the duty of the collation officer, who collated the result is to announce the result and make a declaration. Therefore, having collated the results from Nsukka LGA and Nkanu East LGA, the statutory duty and legal responsibility of the State Returning Officer is simply to announce and declare the results, as INEC cannot, by law, suspend the declaration of result already collated”.