On March 18, 2023, a Twitter user claimed that Alex Otti, The Labour Party gubernatorial candidate for Abia state, has won the election.
The post was posted alongside this caption, “JUST IN: Alexi Otti wins Abia state Governorship election and is now the Governor-elect of Abia State.”
The post has since garnered over 298,000 views and more than 12 thousand likes.
Claim I: Twitter user claim that Alex Otti, the Labour Party’s Abia state governorship candidate, has been declared the winner.
Verification
Voting data available on the result viewing portal (IReV) of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) shows results from 3,406 polling units in the state, out of 4,062, have been uploaded as of Mar 19, 2023, 12:23:30 PM.
Also, the purported declaration of the candidate as the election winner has not been published by any credible media platform. INEC is the official body in charge of announcing a winner.
INEC is currently leading the race but is yet to be declared the winner of the polls.
Verdict
The claim that Alex Otti has won the Abia guber polls, and has been declared the governor-elect is false. INEC has not officially declared a winner as the collation of results is still ongoing.
CLAIM II: INEC chairman interferes with Abia state result collation as the returning officer claimed?
Professor Nnenna Oti, the INEC Presiding Office (P.O) of Abia state, lay claims against Mahmood Yakubu, stating that he personally called her and gave her directives on guidelines to follow in ensuring that Abia governorship election results were collated based on some criteria.
“I’m Professor Nnenna Oti from Afikpo, I am the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Owerri, The people’s mandate shall stand. She also said: “I have spent all my adult life in pursuit of the ideals of good governance. We shall stand by these principles”.
“The pastor in me (she is a Pastor with the RCCG) and the mother in me will not permit me to do anything that will adversely affect the future of our children. I shall do right by God and by man!” she was quoted to have said.
On further investigation, CDD Election War Room found out that she called a staff of the commission in Abuja to speak to the Chairman on what to do next given the impasse in Abia.
She spoke to the Chairman who told her a statement had been issued. She asked for a copy of the statement. It was sent to her and that’s the message that was read.
In a statement titled “distortion of facts about the Abia State Governorship Election”, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, describe the information as fake and asked Nigerians to disregard it.
VERDICT
The claim attributed to the Abia state returning officer is false. Mahmood Yakubu has denied calling Abia Presiding Officer on the collation of results. Multiple credible media organisations like The Punch and The Guardian have also published reports about it.
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