Few hours to the Presidential and National Assembly election, some result sheets for Imo State has reportedly been found missing by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
According to reports gathered by Trumpeta, the result sheets were subsequently discovered to be in Gombe and Ondo States.
This paper further discovered that some result sheets meant for Gombe State was allegedly found in Imo State.
A close source to INEC also revealed that the missing result sheets, as well as the ones that were mixed up, came to the fore when stakeholders examined sensitive electoral materials that were retrieved from different registration area centres in the state in Owerri last Tuesday.
The report also disclosed that those invited to verify the electoral materials in Owerri included political parties, civil society organizations, the Inter-Party Advisory Council, security agencies as well as election monitoring groups.
We learnt that it was during the verification of the materials that some Gombe result sheets were found in the state while some materials for Imo State were discovered to be missing.
It was also learnt that when some materials were discovered to be missing, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof Francis Ezeonu, made some telephone calls and discovered that the missing materials were in Gombe and Akure.
Meanwhile, Trumpeta gathered that necessary arrangements were said to have been put in place to retrieve the materials and also to send the Gombe result sheets to their appropriate location.
Although efforts to confirm the incident from the INEC REC proved abortive as his phone rang out but Chairman of IPAC in Imo State, Mr Ben Duru, confirmed the development in an interview with reporters.
“The result sheets were packed in cartons and when one carton was opened, it was found to belong to Gombe. One or two wards in Aboh Mbaise were also found to be missing which were confirmed to have been packed for Gombe. The REC quickly contacted and planned how to return the result sheets and how we would also receive our own.”
The IPAC boss meanwhile, dismissed insinuations from some political parties that the integrity of the electoral materials may have been compromised.
He said during the verification that lasted till 9pm on Tuesday, all the materials were found to be intact.
He said, “We verified the materials that had been dispatched to the RACs and retrieved. We verified them and they were okay. Nobody touched anyone. Thank God, some of the materials had not got to the Local Governments Areas before the elections were put off.
“Very few of the materials had got to destination. Some were still on the way when the announcement was made. The REC quickly called back the materials. So, yesterday we started by looking at those ones first. After that, we sorted out the new ones that were brought later.”
Also, there was a mild drama on Wednesday at the Central Bank of Nigeria branch in Dugbe, Ibadan, the Oyo State capital after the Form EC 8B of INEC meant for Kano State was found among the materials in the CBN.
The form, which is one of the sensitive election materials, is the result sheet for a particular ward within a state.
One of them subsequently took the form to a superior INEC official, who documented it in a register.
