Mba Leads in 9 Enugu LGAs, Edeoga 8

Gideon Arinze in Enugu

Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State,  Peter Mba has won nine out of the 17 local government areas in Saturday’s election.

According to results announced by the Collation Officers of the LGAs at the State Collation Centre of the commission in Enugu on Sunday evening, the LGAs include Aninri, Ezeagu, Uzo-Uwani, Udi, Nkanu West, Enugu South, Awgu, Enugu East and  Nkanu East.

The results also showed that the candidate of the Labour Party, (LP) Chijioke Edeoga won in eight of the local governments in the state, including  Igbo-Etiti, Igboeze North, Isi-Uzo, Oji River, Nsukka, Enugu North, Igboeze South and Igbo Etiti.

A breakdown of the results shows that Mba is leading in the race.  But a winner is yet to be announced at the time of this report after INEC returning officer for the Enugu governorship election, Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe announced  suspension of the collation of results from Nkanu East and Nsukka LGs following an allegation of non-usage of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS), gross irregularities and intimidation of voters.

After the collation officer for Nkanu East, Ogbene Nnaemeka presented the results of the area which had Mba polling 30,350 votes to beat his closest rival and LP candidate,  Edeoga who scored 1855 votes, an agent of the party and that of the All-Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) raised objections.

While the LP agent raised concerns over the non-usage of the BIVAS, calling for a cancellation of the result in line with the electoral Act, the agent of the APGA raised concerns over discrepancies between results brought from the LG collation centre and the effects on the IREV portal.

Similar concerns were raised for the election outcome in Nsukka where Edeoga polled 30,295 votes to beat Mba who scored a total of 10,886 votes.

The 2023 governorship election will go down in history as one of the most keenly contested polls in a state that has traditionally been under the leadership of the PDP since 1999.