Rivers State Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has condemned in strong terms the threat to life of the state collation officer for the presidential election, Professor Charles Teddy Adias, by members of the public.
In a press briefing by the INEC Residential Electoral Commissioner (REC), Johnson Alalibo Sinikien, he urged the public and critical stakeholders to realise that the function of a state collation officer is to collate results of election conducted at various local government areas.
He said Professor Teddy Adias is not a supervising presiding officer or a presiding officer that conducts elections at the polling units.
He is only collating results already collated at the local government area levels that cannot be changed, except by the verdict of an electoral tribunal.
“I urge those concerned to stop forthwith in unleashing threats because his job does not involve accreditation, voting, counting, validating of votes by parties at primary and secondary levels,” Dr. Sinikien said.
He drew the attention of the security agencies, especially Commissioner of Police for Rivers state and co-chairman of lnter Agency Consultative Committee on election security to note the attempt to truncate the collation of presidential election results in Rivers state.
He also used the opportunity to notify the public that INEC has suspended Port Harcourt City local government area 11 House of Representatives and Port Harcourt City local area Senate elections for alleged irregularities, adding that the commission will conduct thorough investigation before further action will be taken.
