Kogi Guber: ‘Don’t push me to use my powers’ – Returning Officer warns SDP secretary

The Returning Officer for the Kogi State governorship election, Prof Johnson Urama, on Sunday threatened to use his statutory powers to remove the Secretary of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, from the collation centre.

Urama issued the warning after the SDP official questioned results from Okene Local Government Area (LGA), which had just been read out.

“I thought it was one party agent per [party]… There is somebody representing your party here,” the Returning Officer said.

The party official insisted that although his colleague had spoken, he had “observed something that he probably has not seen”.

He described the figures read out as “a doctored result”, alleging that the results had been made known to the party “since yesterday”.

The SDP official further alleged that the results were on the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

“I want to understand why the result was changed now. Why should the result be changed now? My party has been manipulated up until this point in time,” he said.

However, Urama maintained that the SDP official was not allowed to speak and was at risk of being thrown out.

“Secretary of SDP, you know I have the powers to remove anybody trying to disrupt this. Don’t push me to use those powers. You have an agent here and he has spoken,” the returning officer said.