INEC postpones collation of governorship election results in Oyo, gives no reason
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Oyo State has postponed the collation of the governorship election results in the state till Sunday, March 19, 2023.
The collation is expected to commence at 9 am on Sunday.
The State INEC Public Relations Officers, Babatunde Awolowo, who confirmed the development to newsmen at INEC office in Ibadan, on Saturday, March 18, 2023, did not give any reasons for the postponement.
A Neusroom reporter who was at the collation centre reports that the electoral commission did not announce results from any of the 33 local government areas in the state before postponing results collation.
INEC had tagged the chairs at the collation hall and newsmen were waiting for the commencement of results announcement when the PRO informed them that it will now begin on Sunday.
There have been multiple videos circulating on the internet showing residents celebrating the reported lead of the incumbent Governor Seyi Makinde in some parts of the state.
Although Neusroom could not immediately confirm the party leading in the state’s governorship poll, as of 10:20 pm on Saturday, results from 5,077 of 6,390 polling units have been uploaded to INEC’s IREV portal monitored by Neusroom.
The Oyo governorship race is between Makinde of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Senator Teslim Folarin of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who lost his polling unit to the PDP.
Folarin, a former Senate Leader was the PDP’s governorship candidate in 2015, while Makinde was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
The two leading candidates are from Ibadan, the state capital that has produced four of the five governors that have ruled the state since 1999.
Makinde, Senator Rasheed Ladoja (2003-2007) and Late Lam Adesina (1993-2003) and Abiola Ajimobi (2011-2019) are all from Ibadan, while Late Alao Akala (2007-2011) was from Ogbomoso.
