According to Premiumtimes, results posted on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) show that the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Peter Obi, won the 25 February presidential election in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, South-South Nigeria.
According to the report, Obi’s votes in the area indicate that he, not Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), won the Rivers presidential election, contrary to INEC’s proclamation. According to INEC, Mr Tinubu received 80, 239 votes in the Obio/Akpor government area, while Mr Obi received 3,829 votes. INEC also reported that Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) received 368 votes, while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party received 161 votes.
According to Premiumtimes, a check of the results from various polling stations in the 17 wards of Obio/Akpor LGA as published on IReV indicated a stark discrepancy with the result reported by INEC. According to the publication’s count, the APC received 17,158 votes, while the LP received 73,311 votes. The Obio/Akpor Local Government Area contains 1,211 voting units spread over 17 wards.
According to the news portal, it could only evaluate results from 1,116 polling stations submitted to the IReV as of March 16, representing about 94.13 percent of the results from the council region.
According to the magazine, results from certain polling units were either blurred or poorly shot, making them unintelligible. During the time period under consideration, results from around 95 polling units, or approximately 5.87 percent, were yet to be uploaded. According to the news portal, there were no results in several polling units, either because the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System failed or because voters did not turn up to vote, as shown at Ake Hostel UNIPORT Voting Unit in Choba Ward. The publication computed the accessible and legible findings from the 1,116 polling units uploaded to the IReV throughout the review period.
According to Premiumtimes, the results in several polling units in Obio/Akpor were reportedly tainted in favor of the APC, with the original scores disfigured.
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The result from Rumuorluoji Open Space II polling unit in Oro-Igwe Ward, for example, indicated that the APC initially scored 17, but the number ‘2’ was changed to the total to read ‘217.’ The number ‘2’ was deleted and changed to read ‘027’ for the LP. There was signs of changes to fit the revised statistics in the column intended for recording the scores in words.
In Rumuokoro Ward, it was discovered that in 34 polling places, results previously written for the LP were deleted and the statistics were replaced with those of the APC.
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Despite blatant modifications and mutilations, Premiumtime claims to have tallied the data as provided by INEC. In other words, the data were totaled as they appeared on the result sheets.
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In several polling locations, the results of the National Assembly elections were uploaded instead of the presidential election results. A result from the Civic Centre Hall Polling Unit in Rumuigbo Ward, for example, revealed that a result from the House of Representatives election was posted instead of the presidential election result. PREMIUM TIMES also tallied results from Degema Local Government Area, which were uploaded to the IReV, and the findings corroborated Mr Tinubu’s victory in the council area, albeit the score was somewhat lower than the one reported by INEC. Nevertheless, because several voting units in the council area were unreadable or had not yet been uploaded during the review period, this publication was unable to tally the results.
At the time INEC revealed the presidential election results in 21 of the state’s 23 local government areas, Obi was leading Tinubu by almost 23,000 votes. Mr Tinubu received 148,979 votes, while the LP candidate received 169,414 votes.
Mr Obi received the most votes at the time from the Port Harcourt City Local Government Area, where he received 62,451 votes, while Atiku received 7,203 votes and Mr Tinubu received 5,562 votes. Kwankwaso received a 301.
The State Governor, Nyesom Wike, originates from Obio/Akpor, and results from Degema were still awaited. With the results from Obio/Akpor in, and INEC declaring that Mr Tinubu received 80, 239 votes to Mr Obi’s 3,829 votes, the APC candidate was now in the lead and was subsequently proclaimed the victor of the Rivers State presidential election.
Atiku received 368 votes in Obio/Akpor, whereas Mr Kwankwaso received 161 votes. Mr Tinubu received 2,375 votes in the Degema Local Government Area, while Mr Obi received 2,212 votes. Atiku received 3,108 votes, while Mr Kwankwaso received 44 votes. According to INEC, Mr Tinubu received 231,591 votes in Rivers State, compared to Mr Obi’s 175,071 votes. Atiku received 88,468, while Mr Kwankwaso received 1,322 votes.
The collation officer for the Rivers presidential election had deferred the collation of results at some point due to an alleged threat to his life by some followers of a political party.”
