The 2015 Imo gubernatorial elections which was declared inconclusive by the INEC Returning officer in the state, Prof Ebidope Obe can be said to have been characterized with melo drama.
The collation exercise which started at about 11am on Sunday morning was going on peacefully with no doubt about results from the LGAs until those from Ezinihitte LGA were brought in by the returning officers, who were mostly females.
The drama started when APC and other party Agents insisted that the results from Ezinihitte LGA be cancelled due to alleged irregularities. But INEC ordered that the returning officers should enter their collated results into the INEC result sheets in a secluded place under the watchful eyes of party Agents and some security personnel to avoid pressure on the officials.
But the results were later discovered to have exceeded the number of accredited voters and distributed PVC in the areas which INEC later reviewed and gave the accurate results in favour of PDP.
The same scenario also played out when the electoral officers from Oru East presented their own results which were said to be marred with incorrect figures that also led INEC to review it and cancel some results from the area.
Unconfirmed report however indicates that the returning officers from Oru-East after integration by INEC alleged that they were influenced by APC chieftains in the Area to doctor the results in their favour.
With all those developments the PDP and other party Agents at the INEC office expressed concern with the turnout of events and started calling for cancellation of the entire guber results.
However, later at about Sunday midnight, Prof Obe after studying the number of cancelled votes came to the conclusion that they were higher than the margin with which the APC candidate was leading, which was absurd, and therefore declared the result inconclusive.
The state returning officer said that 144,715,(one hundred and forty four thousand, seven hundred and fifteen)votes were cancelled, which was massive and ordered that elections would be held in some Booths in twenty three(23) Local Government Areas in the state to determine the authentic winner of the Governorship election within stipulated period.
This newspaper was told that the election will hold this Saturday April 18, 2015 according to the 2011 electoral Act, for the winner to emerge.
Election will not hold in only four LGAs. They are Ahiazu, Owerri Municipal, Ideato South and North LGAs.
