by Sam Hart
The Abia State Governorship elections held on Saturday April 11, 2015. The elections have been declared inconclusive as INEC was unable to hold elections in several Polling Units spread round the state and the number of registered voters in the polling units where elections could not hold exceed the number of votes separating the leading candidates.
The Electoral Act, the Law guiding conduct of elections in Nigeria, is explicit that where for some reasons, elections do not hold in some polling units on the day of election and the number of registered voters in those units exceed the margin of victory of the Candidate with the highest number of votes, a winner cannot be declared until a rerun election is held in those polling units where elections could not hold.
The rationale behind this proviso is the contemplation by the Law of a situation where the runner up may get enough votes to overturn the lead margin of the leading candidate.
Thus, in Abia State, a rerun election has been tentatively fixed for Saturday, April 25, 2015 pending ratification by the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.
From the results announced so far by INEC, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu of the PDP polled a total of 248,459 votes while his closest challenger, Dr. Alex Otti of APGA polled 165,406 votes.
From the above, Dr. Ikpeazu is leading Dr. Otti by 83,054 votes going by results so far collated and announced by the returning officer for the Abia Governorship elections Professor Benjamin Ozumba, Vice Chancellor, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
The total number of registered voters in the polling units where elections could not hold on April 11 was given as 179,000 and since this number obviously exceeds the winning margin, the final winner of the election cannot be announced until a rerun election is held in those polling units where elections could not hold on April 11.
That being said, the announcement of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu as winner of the Abia Governorship elections is an inevitable eventuality which will still happen after all said and done.
Here is why.
The number of registered voters in the polling units where elections could not hold on April 11 amount to 179,000. Number of voters who collected their Permanent Voters Card in these units amount to about 130,000.
The trend in the Abia Governorship elections show an average voter turn out of 30-40% of holders of PVC which amounts to about 55,000 voters expected to come out and vote on the day of the rerun. We will be generous and assume that 60% of the voters with PVC will vote on that day. That is about 75,000 voters.
Even if by some miracle, all 75,000 voters on the day of the rerun decide to vote for Dr. Alex Otti, the figure will still be short of the 83,000 votes required to upturn the PDP margin of victory.
Note also that by tradition, there is usually voter apathy on rerun days as voters are tired of queuing up repeatedly moreso when they know that their votes will be a mere formality.
Again, rerun elections will hold in Polling Units spread in12 Local Government Areas of Abia State. Half of these LGAS are PDP strongholds while the other half are APGA strongholds.
The implication of this is that at the very least, both parties will share votes that accrue on the rerun day 50-50 meaning that the eventual result of the election will not differ much from what we currently have in terms of winning margin.
With the above reasons, I urge supporters of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu to remain upbeat. Victory has not been denied. It has only been delayed.
You have waited this long to savour this victory. Just 2 more weeks won’t hurt.
Victoria Ascerta.
Sam Hart is a political analyst.
Opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
