By Austin Ogwuda
A University don, Dr. Godwin Avwioro, Monday, narrated how he was held hostage and ordered to sign an election result at gun point.

The University lecturer based at Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka, who was the Returning Officer for Ika Federal constituency, had instead of announcing the result of the election at the point of election, which was Agbor as prescribed by the Electoral Act, finally declared the result at the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, headquarters, Asaba.

The result he announced showed the Accord Party candidate,  Mr. Victor Nwaokolo, as winner of the Ika Federal constituency poll by polling 17,235 votes to beat the PDP candidate Doris Uboh, the incumbent occupier of the office to 15,229 votes while DPP candidate, Mr. Festus Okoh  got  9,483 votes  to clinch the third position.  Dr. Avwioro, who had been in protective custody at the State Police headquarters since Sunday, disowned the result when newsmen cornered him, Monday, at the state police headquarters, Asaba.

He said, “there were wide spread irregularities at Ika North East. I am Dr. Avwioro, the Returning Officer for Ika Federal constituency. We noticed that they had two lists.

One of the lists contained corps members and one was prepared a day before the election and names of corps members were substituted with villagers and relatives of people close to the contestants. We investigated this and discovered it was true.

The corps members protested, about 25 of them and it was on the strength of this that I said it was necessary for another election to be conducted in Ika North East.”