PDP, APC battle for N/Assembly seats

The two major parties in Nigeria’s general elections are battling for the control of two chambers of the National Assembly.The ruling Peoples Democratic Party and the main opposition All Progressives Congress are running neck and neck in the few results that were released so far.The PDP has won all the three senate seats in Ekiti […]

The two major parties in Nigeria’s general elections are battling for the control of two chambers of the National Assembly.
The ruling Peoples Democratic Party and the main opposition All Progressives Congress are running neck and neck in the few results that were released so far.
The PDP has won all the three senate seats in Ekiti state and it has also picked a senate seat in Nasarawa state.
The APC on the other hand has won two senate seats in Osun state and the third is being disputed. It has also won Katsina Central senatorial seat.
Of the House of Representatives seats so far declared, the APC has won seven in Katsina and five in Kano states.
In Niger state, governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu of the PDP is trailing David Umaru of the APC in Niger East Senatorial seat.
Aliyu has polled 46,459 votes as against 149,443 votes recorded by the APC candidate as announced by the Returning officer, Professor Ali Audu Jigam.
In Kano state, Farouk Lawan lost his election to the APC candidate. This is the first time he was losing since 1999.
In the result announced by Professor Lawal Dalandi Yelwa of the Bayero University Kano (BUK), the APC candidate, Sule Aliyu Romo got 48,548 votes while Lawan polled 18, 864 votes.
There are delays in the announcement of results of the National Assembly elections. By midnight yesterday, only seven senate seats results were officially released from four states.
Of the 360 House of Representatives seats only less than 50 were announced at the time of this report.
Also, results released in Sokoto State released showed that the APC was leading in all the eight announced as at the time of going to press.
Meanwhile the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has put until today collation and announcement of state-by-state results of the presidential elections.
 Chairman of the Commission Professor Attahiru Jega announced at a press conference in Abuja yesterday that the process could not start yesterday because only two states had finished the collation.
“According to reports from our state offices, the collation of results has commenced and is going on well. The first collated results for the presidential election are expected at the national collation centre here in Abuja by this evening (yesterday).
“Meanwhile, the commission warns strongly against premature publication or announcement of results by unauthorized persons and media channels particularly online sites. Only INEC is empowered by law to announce results and it is an offence for anyone to pre-empt the commission in this regard,” he said.  
Asked about the announcement of the presidential result by the Ekiti REC, the chairman said it was not wrong to announce the figures of the results after collation from all levels, even though announcement of the election winner could only be done by the commission here in Abuja.
Professor Jega, while answering another question on the happenings in Rivers state, said the commission had received a lot of complaints of alleged malpractices and would investigate them.
“This morning, I received a letter from the APC political party calling for the cancellation and rescheduling of the Rivers state election. When we receive this kind of letter of complaints, we do our best to investigate them, we have not finished investigation and the commission is yet to take a decision.
“But we would take a decision and we would communicate our decision appropriately to the political party, but it has to be after thorough investigation. However, we are concerned about what seems to be happening in Rivers state.
“If our staff are involved in any way or manner, obviously, we would apply the appropriate sanction and take the appropriate decision as provided for by the legal act,” he said.
He added that the commission was pleased with the success recorded in the election and commended the resilience of voters in accommodating the difficulty encountered in the process.
According to Jega, the commission was also satisfied with the smooth process recorded in the north east, where elections were held for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
“It is also gratifying to note that the card readers worked well in the majority of polling units, even though there were areas where difficulties experienced necessitated additional guidelines by the commission to allow for manual accreditation of voters,” he said.
He said Osun, Kebbi, Ekiti, Adamawa, Borno, Jigawa, Anambra, Akwa Ibom and Ebonyi reported   reverting to the “manual-only accreditation of voters” in some of their polling units because of the challenges in the use of card readers.
The challenges recorded in the first day of the elections, he said, also led to the conduct of the elections in 350 polling units across ten affected states.
The states and number of polling units are: Lagos with 90 PUs, Kebbi with 16 PUs, Adamawa with 25 PUs, Niger with 6 PUs and Yobe with 37 PUs. Others were Borno who had elections in 8 PUs, Jigawa with 37 PUs, Kano with 13 PUs, Taraba with 116 PUs and FCT, which had elections yesterday in 2 PUs.
On the fire at the INEC office in Rivers state, he said the commission’s local government office in the state was torched and   the security agencies were promptly notified about the incidence as well as about the need to beef up security in their various offices across the state.  
The INEC chairman also dispelled report of a PDP presidential campaign office claiming victory in 23 states, saying such statement was baseless and should not have been reported by the media, since it was not from INEC.