The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Sunday announced the postponement of the governorship and state assembly elections in Kwande Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue state.
The postponement according to INEC, was due to mix up in the distribution process of the electoral materials, which resulted to the swapping of the materials meant for Kwande East to Kwande West and vice versa.
A statement issued by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the State, Professor Sam Egwu, said in the course of distribunon of materials and deployment to the polling units, it was discovered that there was errors showing that ballot papers meant for Kwande east were labeled Kwande west, while those for Kwande west were labelled Kwande east.
According to him, the error also reflected in the result sheets for the two constituencies.
He said though the error had nothing to do with the ballot papers meant for the governorship election, stakeholders in the LGA across the political spectrum met in the palace of Ter Kwande and took a decision not to allow polls to continue where it had commenced, and for deployment not to continue to other polling units.
“As things stand, the commission is forced to reprint the ballot papers for the two elections and schedule a new date for the elections.
“The decision to reprint the ballot papers for the governoship election is in recognition of the fact that ballot papers had been exposed to the public having commenced voting in some polling units.
“Consequently, the people of Kwande local government, and, indeed, the entire Benue State will have to wait patiently for the commission to do the needful and fix a new date for the gevernorship and state assembly elections in Kwande local government.
“I thank the people of Benue state and Kwande local government for their understanding,” the statement reads in part.