Imoke crushes ACN, ANPP, others… Returns as Cross River gov

For the third time running, Senator Liyel Imoke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has emerged winner of the February 25 governorship election in Cross River State even as the ACN, HDP and CPC have rejected the result alleging electoral malpractices.

Imoke scored 451, 544 votes, which was 90.11 per cent of total votes cast, while his closest rival, Pastor Usani Usani, of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) scored 31, 026 votes.

Announcing the result, the returning officer, Prof. James Epoke, the vice chancellor of the University of Calabar, after receiving results from collation officers from the local governments at the mini-theatre of the Cultural Centre complex in Calabar yesterday, said it was in line with Electoral Act which stipulated that the candidate with the highest votes cast be declared winner.

In attendance were national officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mike Igini, party agents who signed the result among other stakeholders.
There were 1, 242, 916 registered voters. Total votes cast was 501, 117 and out of this figure valid votes cast was 489, 939 while rejected votes were 11, 178.

The results were collated from 17 out of the 18 local governments of the state as election did not hold in Bakassi Local Government Area due to a court order served the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) late Friday, restraining them from conducting the election in the area.
Other results were ALP 325, ANPP 2235, APS 172, CDC 197, CPC 705, DFPF 182, HDP 247, LP 1922, PPA 1146 and UNPD 235.

However, the opposition parties including ACN, HDP and CPC had rejected the result declaring Senator Liyel Imoke winner, alleging that the election was marred by irregularities including intimidation of voters, multiple voting and compromising of electoral officers.
In a separate telephone interviews, the candidates of HDP and CPC, Dr. Theo Onyuku and Ms. Mary Ekpere averred that there was no way they would accept the outcome and that plans were already on to head for tribunal.

According to Onyuku, “what happened on Saturday in the name of election was a charade as the results declared did not in any way reflect the outcome of the turn out.”
He said: “There is no way my party will accept the result; we will take it to the highest level this time as we are already consulting with our team of lawyers to meet the constitutional requirements in term of filing of cases at tribunal.”

Equally speaking, Ms. Mary Ekpere of CPC said: “I agree that there was no violence, but in spite of the low turnout I am shocked that INEC can declare such high scores. I wonder where scores came out from,” adding “for now I am not accepting the result just as I am consulting with my party for the next line of action.”
Speaking with newsmen also, the ACN governorship candidate, Pastor Usani Uguru Usani, said: “There is just no way that we will I accept such a result because it does not reflect the wishes of the people. My party is already collating the results from the local governments so that we can head for tribunal soon.”

Short URL: http://newnigerianpolitics.com/?p=18289

Posted by admin on Feb 27 2012. Filed under Cross River, Headlines, State News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry