I announced Federal Constituency result under duress — INEC Returning Officer
The Collation/Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission in the February 23, 2019 National Assembly election for Pankshin-Kanke-Kanam Federal Constituency of Plateau State, Prof. Joseph Mangut, has admitted that the process was marred by irregularities.
Mangut made this startling revelation before the National Assembly Elections Petitions Tribunal sitting at High Court 3 in Jos on Monday.
He told the Tribunal that his efforts to carry out his mandate as INEC Collation Officer to the best of his ability was truncated.
According to him, though he actually declared Yusuf Adamu Gagdi of the All Progressives Congress in fulfilment of INEC guidelines on the basis of which the election was conducted, he admitted that he actually failed to comply fully to the satisfaction of the complaint procedure.
He blamed it on the disruption that took place at the collation centre in Pankshin.
He narrated that on the day of the election, he reported to the collation center waiting to collate and compute results from the three local governments that make up the constituency.
Magnut said: “The results started coming in on the 24th February, 2019 with Pankshin taking the first lead, followed by Kanke and Kanam in that order.”
He added that what led to the disruption of the process was that after the collation exercise was done, he sought for imput form both parties if there was any complaint over the exercise and the agents started complaining that there were cases of over voting in nine polling units of five wards of Kanam Local Government Council.
He added: “They complained that they were not satisfied with the conduct of the election in the area.
“When I asked the Returning Officer from Kanam to explain the circumstances being alleged by political parties, suddenly the hall went rowdy owing to the disagreements by representatives of political parties.
“The rowdiness was such that the hall, in which the exercise took place, became not conducive.
“Tension arose to the extent that the disagreement went beyond parties agents alone, but almost all the people that were not accounted for in the hall.
“There was a statement that continuing with the exercise will jeopardise all of us and my colleagues that were in the hall.
“The tension went beyond the security agents and we felt that it was time to suspend the exercise.
“Therefore I announced that the exercise was inconclusive to be reconvened the following day when adequate security would have been made.”
The petition, which was filed by Hon. Timothy Golu of APC challenging the election of Hon. Yusuf Gagdi of the Peoples Democratic Party, has Sunday Oyewale as Petitioners Counsel, while Garba Pwul (SAN), Sunday Obende and J.J. Usman are lead counsels to first, second and third respondents respectively.
The Matter has been adjourned to June 25 to 29, 2019 and July 1 and 2 for the continuous taking of witnesses.
