From Scholastica Onyeka Makurdi
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announce the postponement of the Governorship and State Assembly elections in Kwande East and West constituencies in Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State.
Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Professor Samuel Egwu, disclosed this in a statement made available to newsmen in Makurdi.
Egwu explained that the Commission deployed all non-sensitive and sensitive materials to the 23 Local Government Areas of Benue State including Kwande Local Government preparatory to the Governorship and State Assembly elections reschedules for March 18, 2023.
He said all the materials were successfully deployed to the Registration Areas on Friday and the RACs were subsequently mutated.
“However, in the course of distribunon of materials and deployment to the polling units this morning, a printing errors showing that ballot papers meant for Kwande East were labeled Kwande west, while those for Kwande West were labelled Kwande East was discovered.”
He said the error is also reflected in the result sheets for the two constituencies.
He noted however, that the error has nothing to do with the ballot papers meant for the Governorship election, which means governorship election could have proceeded in the Local Government.
The REC said “Following the discovery of the printing errors, stakeholders in the Local Government across the political spectrum who met in the palace of Ter Kwande took a decision not to allow polls to continue where it had commenced, and for deployment not to continue to the other polling units.
“They rejected appeal to allow the governorship election to proceed while the Commission arranges for the reprinting of the ballot papers for the two state constituencies to address the error on the ground that they would prefer to hold the two elections on the same day
“As things stand, the Commission is fated to reprint the ballot papers for the two elections and schedule a new date for the elections.
“The decision to reprint the ballot papers for the governorship election is in recognition of the fact that ballot papers had been exposed to the public having commenced voting in some polling units.
Professor Egwu said “Consequently, the people of Kwande Local Government, and, indeed, the entire Benue State will have to wait patiently for the Commission to do the needful and fix a new date for the governorship and State Assembly elections in Kwande Local Government.”