Guber primary: Agents prevent announcement of results in Kwara

Governorship aspirants’ agents of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ilorin, on Sunday night disallowed the Governorship Primary election panel from announcing the results on the ground that it has been manipulated to favour a particular aspirant.

The panel had invited journalists to the collation centre at Savanah Hotel to announce the outcome of the primaries.

Chairman of the Election Panel, former Deputy Governor in Oyo State, Hon Iyiola Oladokun was about to commence the announcement at about 11.15pm when one of the aspirants’ Agent, Dr Abdul Baki, representing Prof Shuaib Oba Abdulraheem raised an objection.

Baki wanted to know from the chairman of the panel when and where the collation of the results from the 197 wards was collated.

He said himself and other aspirants’ agents have been around the collation centre since Saturday evening without any knowledge of the where the collations were done.

Baki added that when they were called into the hall, the impression of all the agents was that the collation was about to start, adding that it was strange to learn that the panel wanted to announce results.

Dr Baki, who stood up as Oladokun was about to announce the House of Assembly election and told him that the agents of the aspirants came for the collation of the result.

“The results have not been collated, why should you want to announce an uncollated result?

“The electoral guideline of the party says that after the election outside, they have to collate it, we have been here since yesterday, nobody allows us to have access to people that collated the results and you want to announce, it cannot be possible.

“Let us follow what the guideline of the party said, let everybody be there, I am supposed to be where you are collating the result and not to listen to press conference. We are here for the collation of the result,” Baki said.

Another aspirant’s agent, Alhaji Mohammed Kudus for Shuaib Yaman was of the view that the chairman made a mistake by saying he wanted to announce the result rather than to collate the results before announcing it.

“We are here for collation, not for announcement. Second, I am expecting the Returning Officers from each local government to be here and not pressmen, we are here to collate, not to announce,” Kudu added.

Dr Afonja Ibrahim, representing Hakeem Lawal said he has been around since Saturday after the completion of voting at the polling units, adding that he was expecting invitation from the panel to start collation of results.

“I was expecting invitation for the collation of the results as the Returning Officers are bringing them in, but to my dismay, we have not been attended to.

“When the pressmen came in, we asked them are you here for press conference or collation of results because this is a collation exercise before you can do result announcement, you have to do collation first.

“We don’t know why it is delayed to this point, let us do the collation,” Ibrahim added.

In his remark, Alhaji Bolaji Raji told the panel he represented Arch Lola Ashiru, a Senatorial aspirant for Kwara South whose election was conducted on Thursday, Oct 4.

“We finished our election since Thursday and since then we have been coming here for the past three days and nobody called us for any collation.

“I am surprised that you are now calling us to come and hear the announcement of results, which result? When was it collated? Raji asked.

The panel chairman remarked that the situation in Kwara did not permit spending more time than necessary.

“You know the terrain of your state more than I do, even we received a result by 6.30pm today. Our mandate is to carry out the assignment and return it to Abuja today, not an hour longer than today.

“The Returning Officers came and reported to us what happened on the field, we have no time under the circumstances in which we find ourselves than to harken to the directive from Abuja.

“Since six o’clock, Abuja has been requesting for the results of these elections. We are not here to conduct an election; we did four elections.

“If anybody is aggrieved by our action, please forward your grievances to Abuja, we are operating under a tight schedule,” Oladokun said.

Alhaji Bolaji Jimo, representing Moshood Mustapha took him up and declared that from the chairman’s remarks, no result was collated.

“We are supposed to be where you are receiving the results and as they are coming in, we check the results together by way of collation,” he said.

Jimoh, holding a copy of the party’s constitution said; “you don’t wait until all the results are received before collating.”

“As the results are trickling in; you start collating; collation of result is not a big deal. It is not as if you wait for all the results before collating, no,” he added.

At a point, the atmosphere became charged and the agents insisted that nobody can announce result that was not collated in the presence of all parties involve.

Attempt by Oladokun to continue with the announcement of the results was resisted by the angry agents who told him to leave the hall and go to Abuja to do the announcement.

The chairman’s appeal to let the result go because of time constraint on the part of the panel was vehemently rejected, the agents insisting on collation.

The argument dragged on until about 11.45pm before everybody, including journalists left the hall.

Attempt to speak with the representative of INEC was futile as he left the hall when the agents prevented the announcement of the result.