By Anastacia Eluwa, Asaba
Confusion has trailed the conduct of the extended Presidential and National Assembly elections in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State.
This is coming as the state Residents Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr. Monday Udoh-Tom, gave conflicting information of the number of wards where the election is expected to hold on Sunday.
Udoh-Tom had earlier said while briefing newsmen at INEC office in Oshimili South insisted that voting was to take place in three Wards in the council area contrary to the situation on ground.
Nigerian Pilot gathered that Warri South has twelve wards and all the twelve wards have not voted except a pocket of few polling units that voted late Saturday.
It observed the distribution of electoral materials at the INEC Secretariat, that materials were being moved to ward 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 3, 11, 12 and 9 for the election contrary to the claims by the REC that election will hold in only three Wards in the council area.
It was not clear why the INEC Electoral Officer, (E.O),in the council area, Mr Kingsley Ogboe, passed the information to the REC that election would hold in only three Wards in the council area.
It further learnt that result sheets for most of the polling units were allegedly missing.
Acting Head, Voter’s Education and Publicity, Bukola Ojeme, who earlier confirmed to newsmen via a WhatsApp post on INEC’s press Corp that election will hold in three Wards, made a U-turn following inquiries to say it is confirmed that election will hold in 12 Wards.
He later apologized to journalists that the information was passed to him wrongly.
Ojeme mentioned the wards and polling units where election will hold to include: (RA01) 008; 009; 012; 015; ( RA 04) 30( All PUs); ( RA05) 005; 009; 010; 011; 015; 028; 029; ( RA06) 016;( RA07) 25( All PUs); ( RA09) PU 46( All PUs) and( RA011) 005; 006; 007; 011; 012; 013; 027.
Investigation however revealed that most of the political parties agents are complaining that the fresh materials being given to the INEC ad-hoc staff have no result sheets as some of them were reportedly destroyed on Saturday by hoodlums when the election didn’t hold while others that were returned are misplaced.
It learnt that only three Wards of the 12 Wards have complete electoral materials in the council area.
Sources said that the Supervisory Polling Officers (SPO’s) who received the electoral materials from the polling units after Saturday’s botched voting, had absconded with the result sheets for reason yet to be fathom.
Investigations also revealed that political parties agents provided fund to hire buses to convey the materials on Sunday as INEC officials had complained of having logistics problem.
The Electoral officer, Mr Kingsley Ogboe, rebuffed all attempts by newsmen to get his comment as at 3:40 pm when this report was filled for publication.
