THE  total votes recorded for the ruling party,  All Progressives Congress, APC, in Kogi State shows that the incumbent governor,  Yahaya Bello has won the Saturday guber election, but the number contradicts the summation of the vote counts from each local government area, The ICIR has found.

The final score announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the APC is 12,682 higher than the actual votes counted. This represents 3.2 per cent surplus in favour of the ruling party.

The Returning Officer and Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Professor Ibrahim Umar, declared at the INEC office in Lokoja that the APC governorship candidate, Yahaya Bello, polled 406,222 votes in total against Musa Wada of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who garnered a total 189,704 votes.

Here are the figures as announced by INEC:

However, a summation of results from 21 local government areas monitored live by The ICIR shows that the APC candidate instead polled a total of 393,540 votes, a difference of 12,682 from the figure announced by the INEC, while the PDP polled 189,704 votes.

The ICIR discovered that 12,682 is also exactly the number of votes that went to the APC candidate at Ibaji Local Government Area, an indication that the result from the area may have been posted twice.

Results from Ibaji were part of the last set of results announced on Monday morning by the electoral commission after it postponed the collation process on Sunday evening.

Rotimi Oyekanmi, Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, did not deny this finding when The ICIR reached out to him.

“We are going to look at the figure again when the report is sent to the headquarters,” he said.

He also assured The ICIR that the Commission would check for votes recorded for other local governments to see if there are double posting of results.