The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has exonerated one of its staff arrested for allegedly tearing and pasting new election result in Saturday’s governorship election in Ayedaade Local Government Area of Osun State for any wrong doing.
The commission on Tuesday insisted that the staff, Mutiu Salawu was an on officially assignment when he was accosted by some irate mob.
This was contained in a statement released by INEC on Tuesday in Osun State.
The electoral body said rather than the misconception that votes of a political party was reduced to favour another party, the commission was correcting an anomaly which was detected in the earlier results which made the electoral officer order for cancellation and re-pasting of the results at the Local Government Collation Center in Gbongan.
Osun State Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC, Prof Olusegun Agbaje noted that the misconception and undue reportage by some media agencies of the figures raised by the agent of a particular political party.
According to Agbaje, “The electoral officer for Ayedaade LGA, Mrs Aderinoye Olukemi Alice, on the information she received from the Local Government Security Chief (LGSC) that there was an error on the Form EC 60 (E) INEC Publication of Result of Poll Poster, pasted at the Local Government Collation Centre, i.e. St. Patrick Grammar School, Gbongan and after crosschecking the result sheet for the collation EC 8C to confirm the information, called her staff Mutiu Salawu, to remove the pasted EC 80 (E) poster with error and replace with correct one.
“Mr Mutiu Salawu, being a dutiful staffer, went to carry out the lawful instruction of his boss when he was accosted by a mob that manhandled him.”
The statement went ahead to give an extended breakdown of the results, which noted that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 9,836 votes instead of the mistakenly-recorded 10,836 votes.
The commission also expressed its displeasure with the press for the “repeated broadcast of the event maliciously without proper investigation”.
Read Statement below:
