Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that a trending report suggesting that the candidate of Labour Party (LP) Peter Obi, won the Presidential election in Rivers State and not the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu was “prejudicial.”
In the report, Premium Times said Obi won the February 25, 2023, Presidential election in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State, South-South Nigeria, according to results uploaded on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).
The newspaper said that given that Mr Tinubu was declared winner in Obio/Akpor, its review focused on the results of the votes scored by the APC and LP in the area.
According to the report: “By our tally, the APC got 17, 158 votes while the LP amassed 73,311 votes.
“Obio/Akpor Local Government Area has 1,211 polling units across its 17 wards.
“PREMIUM TIMES could only review results from 1,116 polling units uploaded on the IReV as of 16 March, representing about 94.13 percent of the results from the council area.”
But the result for Obio/Akpor LGA as declared by INEC portrayed Mr Tinubu as scoring 80, 239 votes, with Mr Obi garnering 3,829 votes.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 368 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party got 161 votes.
Mr Tinubu was later declared winner of the election. Atiku came second while Mr Obi came third.
Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, while lamenting on the report, told Leadership that “while the Premium Times reserves the right to publish reports on various issues, it is a known fact that when a matter is before a court, no one, including a media organisation, should comment on it.”
He said what the media house did by publishing a report on a matter before the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal was “unfortunately prejudicial. It shouldn’t have been done. I don’t know why they did it or what their intention is.
“It is for this reason that I cannot comment on it.”
