The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nasarawa on Wednesday accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of allocating votes to Governor Abdullahi Sule in the March 18 governorship election in the state.
The state’s governorship election petition tribunal headed by Justice Ezekiel Ajayi on October 2 nullified Sule’s victory in the election and declared David Ombugadu of the PDP as the duly elected governor of the state.
In its announcement on March 20, INEC said Sule scored 347,209 votes while his PDP rival got 283,016 votes in the exercise.
In a statement issued by its Publicity Secretary in the state, Alhaji Ibrahim Hamza, the party challenged INEC to tell the people of Nasarawa how it arrived at the number of votes allocated to the governor.
The party recalled that the majority judgment of the tribunal invalidated the commission’s declaration of Sule as the winner of the election.
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He stressed the need for INEC to clarify the alleged discrepancy in the vote count during the election.
The statement read: “In his minority judgment, Hon. Justice Ibrahim Mashi ruled that Sule scored only 295,402 votes as against the inflated votes of 347,209 freely given to him by INEC.
“The same minority judgment said Ombugadu scored 291, 603 as against the suppressed votes of 283,016 allocated to him by INEC.
“The question begging for answer is where did INEC get the 51,807 votes margin it generously allocated to Sule and returned him as the elected governor of Nasarawa State based on the ruling of the same minority judgment?.”
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