Irregularities recorded in Warri, says INEC

The Electoral Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State, Fidelia Omoile, has said the commission received reports of irregularities during last Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections.

The INEC man said it was investigating the irregularities.

This happened as the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate for Uvwie Constituency, Efe Oforbruku, was leading in the number of votes being counted at the time of filing this report last night.

It was learnt that the election in Warri South was riddled with irregularities, such as diversion of materials, intimidation of electoral officers and illegal change of polling units.

Omoile said the commission would decide on the complaints by some parties.

When our correspondent spoke with Omoile at the INEC office in Warri a little past 3pm, at the collation centre for the votes in the council area, she said the collation was still going on, adding that results would be ready yesterday.

Omoile said: “I will say the exercise was okay, but not to say that we didn’t have challenges. We had reported cases of violence in some wards, diversion of materials, of units and such things. These …are being handled in this office. We have reports from our presiding officers and Special Polling Officers (SPOs) in such areas where such problems occurred. The complaints are being handled.

“The collation is still going on. We are progressing; there’s no problem. In areas where agents dispute a particular result – either it’s not corresponding to what they have – we’ll put heads together with the Returning Officer and take a decision, either to cancel or not.

“In areas where materials were snatched, taken away or where officers were cajoled to follow them to places that are not the actual polling units, it’s all harassment; when you force ad-hoc workers to move away from where they need to be is harassment.”

Also, the collation of results at the Uvwie Local Government Area’s collation centre, as at the time of filing this report, put SDP’s candidate, Efe Oforbruku, an incumbent, ahead as the likely winner.