A senior lecturer in the University of Benin, Paul Uwugiaren, is now in police custody for attempting to falsify results of the polls conducted in Ugbogui Ward 8 of Ovia federal constituency of Edo State last Saturday.
Mr. Uwugiaren who is now in the custody of the state CID in Benin City, was employed as a collation officer by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). He was apprehended after causing confusion at the Iguobazuwa collation centre by allegedly adding 8,000 votes to the 1,123 votes of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the constituency, after allegedly collecting the sum of N5m.
It was gathered that trouble started when at about 2pm on Sunday, 24 hours after the polls, Mr Uwugiaren was yet to turn up at Iguobazuwa with the result sheet for Ward 8.
Worried by the development and after several attempts to get the lecturer through telephone calls and text messages failed, the electoral officer for the area, Chinyere Amakiri had to alert the divisional police officer, in the area, Mr Awe Francis who got Mr. Uwugiaren to the collation centre.
With the situation degenerating, Mr Uwugiaren presented a score sheet for Ward 8, which showed that the PDP scored 10,123 votes while the ACN scored 1,337 votes; whereas there are less than 3,500 voters registered in the unit.
At the prodding of the police, soldiers, the ACN agents and supervisors during interrogation, even with threats of arrest if he failed to tell the truth, Mr Uwugiaren still insisted that the scores were valid. Mrs Amakiri had to order a recount of the votes for the unit. At the end, it was discovered that the lecturer had falsified the election result to favour the PDP that actually scored 1,123, while the ACN scored 1,337 in the ward.
Upon further interrogation, Mr. Uwugiaren admitted that he was pressurized by officials of the PDP in the unit and the PDP candidate, Charity Amaeyaevbo, to falsify the election results. He further revealed that he was offered around N5m which he alleged had already been paid into his bank account.
Meanwhile, there are indications that the PDP candidate, Mr Amaeyaevbo, might soon join Mr Uwugiaren in detention over his role in the falsification of the votes in Ward 8. It would be recalled that Mr Amaeyaevbo’s candidacy is still a subject of a petition brought against him by a co-contestant, Lucy Omagbon, who alleged that the PDP national secretariat should nullify his nomination on grounds that he never resigned his employment as a staff of FinBank Plc.
When contacted on phone, Edo State police command spokesperson, Peter Ogboi, declined comment, saying that he did not have the facts about the incident.
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