The Director, Voter Education and Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Victor Aluko, says some collation officers of the commission are not good at Mathematics.
Aluko stated this while reacting to the conflict between two officials of the Commission in the Orumba North Local Government Area during the Anambra State Governorship Election last weekend.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that the Returning Officer of the LGA, Michael Otu, said he nearly lost his life when thugs attacked the Local Government Collation Centre during the election on Saturday.
“I am lucky to be alive. I was teargassed and as a BP patient, I nearly lost my life. I was forced to sign a result which wasn’t collated by me. The Polling Officer, Comfort Omoroge, who worked with me, compromised,” Otu had said.
In her reaction, Omoroge had stated that Otu was confused and didn’t know the difference between casting of vote and collation of results.
“This man (Onu) has not been involved in an election and it is obvious from the way he behaved on the election day. His actions put us at risk,” she had added.
Speaking on Monday, INEC Director, Victor Aluko, said both officials would be interrogated by the Commission to unravel what actually happened.
Aluko, who spoke on ‘NTA Good Morning Nigeria’ breakfast programme monitored by The PUNCH, also said though many of the ad hoc officers recruited for the election were trained, some of them find Mathematics challenging.
He said, “We were not there in Orumba North when the rural rumble was taking place between the Collation Officer and the INEC Electoral Officer but what we could see when the Returning Officer was collating was that she did the right thing by setting up an emergency team to review what was submitted by the officer.
“For now, we would not really know what happened until we interrogate the collation officer who was making the allegations and until we interrogate the Electoral Officer who was alluding to the fact that the Collation Officer was inexperienced.
“We recruited many Collation Officers and of course, we recruited intellectuals from the academic for local government ward collation position but sometimes when people have to perform such important duties, some people may not be so good in Mathematics or Arithmetic.”
