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Bassa/Jos North Fed. Constituency: INEC
fails to announce result three days after election
By Dickson Gupiya
February 26, 2019
The
Independent National Electoral Commission has failed to announce the result for
Bassa/Jos North Federal Constituency three days after the conduct of the
exercise.
The
major contestants in the said election which was conducted last Saturday are; Hon. Jonathan Dabo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Hon. Maitala
Jengre of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
The
said election is also adjudged free, fair and credible by both local and
international observers.
Collation
went on peacefully yesterday and the electoral officers were about to made
final entries before announcing the result until thugs evaded the venue of the
collation, disrupted the process and held INEC officials hostage for several
hours.
The
development created tension in Jos city and even paralyzed business activities.
The
security rose up to the occasion as re-enforcement was quickly done and the situation
was brought under control.
The
situation prompted INEC to postpone the announcement of the winner till today
by 10am.
However,
as the process was about to commence today, security operatives barred
journalists who have been part of the process from the beginning from collation
centre saying that the day’s agenda was a discussion on the collation between
stakeholders of the political parties involved and security agencies.
Four
hours later, the Plateau State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr.
Hussain H. Pai told journalists that there was an issue that needed to be sorted
out before the announcement adding that by tomorrow, the issue would have been
sorted out and the winner would be announced thereafter.
When journalists
pressed further to know what the issue was, he said the issue had to do with
the collation of result from Tudun Wada/Kabong ward stressing that hopefully,
the issue would be resolved tomorrow and the winner would be announced. On why
Journalists were barred from the process, the visibly shaken REC could not give
satisfactory answer.
Hon.
Bashir Sati, the APC state secretary and Hon. Damishi Sango, the State Chairman
of the PDP all hope the issue would be resolved tomorrow and the winner of the
election announced.
All
journalists who spoke to African Drum
expressed disenchantment over the attitude of the security operatives for
barring them from the collation centre stressing that it was also a violation
of article 48 of the electoral guidelines 2019 by the same INEC.
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