Angry voters in Enugu, Saturday, besieged officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to stop officials from leaving the area until the results from their polling unit were completely uploaded on IReV.portal.
The incident occurred at about 4: 12 p.m. at Ugbo Okonkwo Square 1 Polling Unit, New Haven Ward, Enugu North Local Government Area of the state during the governorship and House of Assembly elections.
How it began
The presiding officer at the polling unit, after counting and announcing the results, said she would not be able to upload them to the IReV portal because she did not have the correct password for the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVS) machine.
But enraged voters vowed they would not allow them to repeat the 25 February incident of failing to upload the results to the portal before departing the polling unit.
“This is the kind of evil you people did last time that you want to repeat. You people must be care,” an angry voter was heard yelling at the officials, who were seen struggling to operate the BVAS.
Another voter, Okon Effiong, told PREMIUM TIMES that all the voters were angry because they suspected that the results could be changed if they were not uploaded at the polling unit.
“What we are hearing is that they (INEC officials) cannot find the password to upload (the results). Now, we have told them, if you know you can’t upload, don’t even come. We don’t want that exercise,” he said.
“The reason is simple. The bourgeoisies cannot continue to use it (BVAS) to shortchange the people. They have done it before. We will not take it for the second time. You cannot continue to take the people for granted. So, if they don’t upload (the results), they are not leaving this place. That’s what we are saying,” Mr Effiong stated.
However, the presiding officer would later phone an unknown person- believed to be an INEC official- who gave her the correct password, before she successfully uploaded the results to the commission’s IREV.
During the presidential and National Assembly elections on 25 February, the BVAS failed in many polling units across Nigeria, with some election officials saying they had no password for their BVAS machines. This resulted in their failure to upload the results from polling units in line with the INEC guidelines for the elections.
The results
PREMIUM TIMES observed that the Labour Party candidates won in all the results from the Ugbo Okonkwo Square 1 Polling Unit.
In the results obtained by this newspaper, the LP governorship candidate in the state polled 91 votes to defeat the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, who came second with 61. The LP candidates for Enugu East District and House of Assembly elections also won in the polling unit.
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