Kogi Decides: INEC declares Dino Melaye, Smart Adeyemi elections inconclusive

Ilesanmi AdekanbiNovember 18, 2019

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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the election of Dino Melaye and Smart Adeyemi of senatorial election in Kogi West district inconclusive.

The electoral umpire said the declaration is due to the fact that the margin between Smart Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is lower than the number of registered voters in 53 polling units of 20 registration areas in the zone where elections were cancelled.

Mr Adeyemi is said to have scored 80,118 votes while Mr Melaye polled 59,548 is 20,570. The number of registered voters in the affected areas is 43,127.

The returning officer, Olayinde Lawal, who declared the election inconclusive, said he is constrained by law not to declare a winner because of the lead margin between the leading candidates.

He said INEC will announce a new date for the conduct of a supplementary election in the 53 polling units before a winner can be returned.

Observer groups had also reported that the election in Kogi State was marred by violence and vote-buying.

Observer groups, YIAGA and Situation Room, have called for the total cancellation of the elections held in Kogi on Saturday. The state’s governorship election and the Kogi West senatorial rerun election were held on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Dino Melaye has already rejected the results, described Saturday’s election as an ‘helicopter election.’

The lawmaker who spoke to Channels TV, said the result released by INEC is ‘fictitious.

Rejecting the results of the election, Melaye added that the election was marred by massive violence and rigging.

He said, “The innovation is that what we had is what I have christened ‘Helicopter election’. For the first time, rigging has been advanced to the level that now the use of a helicopter in perpetuating this electoral atrocity manifested yesterday.

“Helicopter hovering around Polling units in Lokoja, dropping bullets on innocent, harmless citizens and electorate; and as I speak, yesterday, teargas being fired from this helicopter.

“Despite the fact that this helicopter was used in harassing, intimidating and firing innocent electorates, the votes of those places were carted away and taken to the government house, stuffed and brought back to the collation centre and they have been accepted and admitted and collation is ongoing.

“They brought mayhem on my own community and even killed my nephew, we are waiting to see what INEC will do, but I reject in totality, this fictitious result and I want to say that all these are not about the election, it is about Dino Melaye.”

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