Bauchi Guber: INEC Complies With Court Order, Suspends Result Collation

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has suspended the collation of the governorship election in Bauchi state.

This was announced by the Bauchi resident electoral commissioner (REC), Ibrahim Abdullahi, on Tuesday, during a press briefing.

Abdullahi said the development was in line with the order of a federal high court in Abuja restraining INEC from commencing collation.

Recall that the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the state governor, Mohammed Abubakar had approached the court asking that it stops the commission from collating the results.

The governor, rather, asked the court to compel INEC to go ahead with supplementary election it had earlier fixed for Saturday.

Abdullahi in the statement said, “As you are aware, we have been indulged by members of the press as to the news that in respect of the news making the rounds in respect of Tafawa Balewa.

“So I am to inform you formally that the Independent National Electoral Commission is in receipt of a court order restraining it from proceeding with the collation and announcement of results in respect of Tafawa Balewa only.

“I’m also to add that the order which was sort and granted does not include the Tafawa Balewa constituency, hence we will make arrangements to continue with the state constituency collation and subsequently announce the results.”

In Tafawa Balewa, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 40,010 votes while the APC had 20,862.

The result was rejected because it was recorded in a replacement form without approval from the state returning officer.