Candidates of the All Progressive Grand
Alliance and the Peoples Democratic Party have won the Brass state
constituency II and Ogbia state constituency II seats in the rescheduled
House of Assembly election in Bayelsa State.
However, the rescheduled election, which
took place on Sunday, was marred by the hijacking of electoral materials
and sporadic shootings by unknown gunmen.
The shootings took place in the full glare of hundreds of security operatives deployed in the area to maintain law and order.
It was learnt that the election in Brass
state constituency II witnessed a large turnout with the APGA candidate,
Alfred Watson, defeating the candidates of the PDP and that of the All
Progressives Congress.
According to the result declared on
Sunday by the Returning Officer, who is a lecturer at the state-owned
Niger Delta University, Mr. Perekere Bertola, the APGA candidate scored
849. Voters accredited for the election were 2,805.
Bertola said the PDP candidate scored 380 votes while the APC candidate scored 476 votes.
Some of the supporters of the APGA
candidate claimed that attempts by suspected PDP supporters to collude
with the security personnel to declare the election inconclusive were
thwarted by angry youths from the constituency.
In Ogbia state constituency II, it was
learnt that the turnout of voters was poor and materials were allegedly
hijacked from the voting venues by some armed men and security
operatives.
Some APC leaders in Ogbia said the
party’s House of Assembly candidate, Tonye Okio, was later called in the
midnight by some officials of the Independent National Electoral
Commission to come and witness the counting of votes, stressing that
this was against the provision of the Electoral Act.
Contacted on the development, Okio said
the election into the seat of Ogbia state constituency II did not hold
as it was marred by intimidation.
Effort to get the reaction of INEC
Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Barikor Kpagih, was not successful
as his mobile phone line was not reachable.
Source: Punchng
