#NigeriaDecides2023: Melaye Challenges INEC Over Cancellation Of Two Ekiti Election Results

The Spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign council, Dino Melaye, has demanded an explanation for the cancellation of two Ekiti election results.

Naija News reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday evening announced that the election results of two units in Ekiti were cancelled for over-voting and bypassing the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

The report was filed by INEC State Collation Officer for Presidential Election, Prof Akeem Lasisi, the vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila Orangun, Osun State, shortly after the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, was declared as the winner of Saturday’s presidential election in Ekiti.

Tinubu polled, 201,494 votes to defeat the PDP flagbearer, Atiku Abubakar, who scored 89,554 votes.

While the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate emerged third with 11,397 votes Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party polled 264 votes.

According to the Collation officer, the total no of accredited voters was 315,058 on election day; valid votes were 308,171; rejected votes recorded were 6,301 while the total votes cast were 314,472.

When asked by INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, if there were places where elections didn’t hold or were cancelled for sundry malpractices, the collation officer fingered two units.

He said: “There were two places where we have cancellations. The total number of votes in the polling unit is 1,786. And the areas were Ado Ekiti polling unit 7, Ward 4 and Ekiti East Local Government Ward 7, polling unit 6. The reason for the cancellation was a bypass of BVAS and over-voting.”

Reacting to this, the PDP National Collation Agent, Dino Melaye, challenged the vice chancellor to explain what he meant by BVAS bypass.

He asked “I just want to be educated. I heard the bypass of the BVAS responsible for the cancellation. I just want to understand what it means”

In response, Lasisi said: “As reported by the local government, there were certain numbers of voters that were recorded. But they found out that the number recorded for voting was more than what was recorded in the BVAS. That was the reason it was reported as over-voting.”

When asked if he was satisfied with the collation officer’s report, Melaye nodded and joined the rest of his team.