Lokoja, Kogi – ACN on Sunday in Lokoja rejected the state governorship election results announced by INEC, with its collation centre agent, Malam Mohammed Suleiman, refusing to sign the results sheet.

The INEC’s Returning Officer, Prof. Shamsudeen Amali, had earlier in the day declared Capt. Idris Wada of the PDP winner of the Dec. 3 election.

While refusing to sign the results sheet, Suleiman had insisted that ACN won the election, and alleged that thugs chased away the party’s agents at Ibaji Local Government Area.

He also cited ballot-snatching incidents and an alleged kidnapping of INEC ad hoc staff in one local government area as some of the reasons the final result was not acceptable to his party.

“The party leadership will decide the next line of action,’’ Suleiman said.

In his reaction to Suleiman’s action, Alhaji Yusuff Balarabe, the PDP agent at the collation centre, had described the election results as fantastic.

Minutes later, the ACN addressed a press conference to announce a total rejection of the results which had Wada, an aviation pilot, polling 300,372 votes.

Mr Dino Melaye, the Chief Campaign Strategist to Prince Abubakar Audu, the party’s candidate in the election, alleged that the PDP had resorted to scientific rigging.

“The results released by INEC are fallacious, malicious, fabricated, totally untrue and do not represent the wishes and aspirations of voters as expressed.

“There is no way our party can accept it,’’ he said.

The former PDP member also pointed out that there were no security personnel to man the polling units in the poll conducted across the state on Saturday.

“I also bring to your notice that policemen and women were withdrawn from most polling units in Kogi yesterday.

“This was deliberate to facilitate the electoral fraud as manifested in the results released this afternoon.

“It is shameful and disgraceful that when we are supposed to be advancing from the analogue and fraudulent ways of politicking, the PDP has shown Nigerians that rigging is endemic in it”, he said.

Melaye alleged that INEC, in collaboration with the police, gave duplicate result sheets with same serial numbers as those distributed to the polling units to the PDP.

“This way, results recorded at the polling stations were discarded while other results written on the duplicate result sheet with same serial number were announced.

“The reason for this is because when you get to court, INEC is the only witness to authenticate which result is genuine” he said.

The former House of Representatives member was however confident that “the stolen mandate will be recovered, the connivance notwithstanding’’.

While reacting to ACN’s allegations, the state PDP chairman, Hassan Salau, said it was normal for losers to complain in every contest.

He insisted that the ACN did not have the structure to contend with PDP in Kogi, and its complaints were therefore spurious.

Salau described the ACN allegation as “medicine after death” , adding “with the victory, ACN has been smoked out of Kogi”.

NAN recalls that Wada defeated his closest rival, Audu who scored 159, 913 votes to place second in the election contested by 19 candidates.

The results showed that Wada won by a margin of 140, 459 from all votes cast in 18 of the state’s 21 local government areas

The election’s Returning Officer had said Wada emerged the overall winner, having polled the majority votes.

Amali, who is the Vice-Chancellor of Nasarawa State University, had also said only 518,949 of the 1,325,272 registered voters in the state actually came out to exercise their franchise.

He further said that a total of 484,168 votes were validly returned while 34,781 votes were invalidated.

According to him, Mr Ubolo Okpanachi of the ANPP polled 9,642 votes to emerge third while Mr James Ocholi of CPC came fourth with 5,724 votes.

Two female contestants, Mrs Aisha Audu of Justice Party and Mrs Esther Awe of Citizen Peoples Party, scored 619 and 379 votes respectively.

A former Chaplain of Aso Rock, Prof. Yusuf Obajeh who contested on the platform of APGA, scored 331 votes.

NAN reports that six INEC National Commissioners and three Resident Electoral Commissioners graced the declaration of the results.

Kogi’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Alhaji Ahmad Makama, expressed delight that the election was held in a transparent manner and under a peaceful atmosphere.

He attributed the success recorded to both the commission’s resolve to conduct a free and fair election and the co-operation of all stakeholders.(NAN)