The Rivers State Elections Petition Tribunal for National and State
\nAssembly sitting in Abuja Yesterday declared Chief Andrew Uchendu of the
\nAPC as duly elected Senator for Rivers East.<\/p>\n
In declaring Chief Uchendu Senator-elect, the Tribunal held that the 1st
\nRespondent (INEC) cannot pick and choose which results to accept in an
\nelection that held on the same day. Recall that the electoral agency had
\ndeclared Hon Chidi Wihioka and Hon Byke Wanjoku of the APC as duly elected
\nand returned for Ikwerre\/Emohua Federal Constituency and Ikwerre State
\nConstituency respectively but failed to declare the results of the
\nSenatorial election which held simultaneously.<\/p>\n
The Tribunal wondered why INEC failed to collate the results of the areas
\nmentioned above, especially in Ikwerre and Emuoha LGAs, when it has
\naccepted and collated the results of the House of Representatives election
\nconducted on the same date and time by the same INEC officials in the
\narea.<\/p>\n
The Tribunal accepted the responsibility of collating the results of the
\nareas so ignored by INEC and arrived at the total score of 126,160 for
\nUchendu and APC and 84,000 for Sekibo and PDP.<\/p>\n
Tribunal nullified the declaration of Sekibo and ordered INEC to withdraw
\nthe certificate of return issued to him.<\/p>\n
Tribunal declared Uchendu winner of the Election having scored the highest
\nnumber of lawful votes cast and ordered INEC to immediately issue him the
\ncertificate of returns.<\/p>\n
With this verdict which evolved essentially from the addition by the
\nTribunal of the undeclared results in the aforementioned areas having been
\nsatisfied that the Petitioner has proved his case from the credible
\nevidence led by Petitioner’s witnesses, INEC would now issue Chief
\nUchendu, a former General Manager of the State-owned RISONPALM and
\nthree-term member of the House of Representatives, a Certificate of Return
\nas duly elected Senator per the Order of the Tribunal. The Tribunal also
\nordered INEC to immediately withdraw the Certificate it previously issued
\nGeorge Thompson Sekibo of the PDP.<\/p>\n
It will be recalled that Governor Nyesom Wike had led other PDP Members to
\nthe Rivers East Senatorial District Collation Centre and forced the INEC
\nreturning officer to declare the Results without the one from Emohua LOcal
\nGovernment Area.<\/p>\n
Declaring the results at the collation centre, the Returning Officer for
\nRivers East, Prof. Orji Okumenkama, said Sekibo scored 93,098 votes to
\ndefeat the candidate of the APC, Chief Andrew Uchendu, who scored 34,193
\nvotes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Rivers State Elections Petition Tribunal for National and State Assembly sitting in Abuja Yesterday declared Chief Andrew Uchendu of the APC as duly elected Senator for Rivers East. In…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n