FCT poll: Drama at Kuje collation centre as APC agent alleges election infractions

There was mild drama at the collation centre of the Kuje chairmanship election after an agent of the All Progressives Congress, Haruna Jatau, raised concerns about alleged irregularities in four polling units during the Saturday, February 21, 2026 election.

The situation unfolded when Zubairu Muhammad, the returning officer for Gudunkarya Ward, presented the ward results. Jatau immediately rejected the outcome, claiming that election breaches occurred in two polling units within the ward.

He claimed there was overvoting at two polling units and manual accreditation at two other polling units in the same ward. “PU017 and 019 all in Zagabutu village recorded over voting, and we demand for their outright cancellation,” the APC party agent said PU002 and 011 all in Kuli village used manual accreditation for voting, which is against our extant laws. We demand for the cancellation of votes from the two polling units.”he said.

According to Jatau, there was overvoting in Zagabutu village, while in Huni village, voters were accredited manually instead of using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). “The APC rejects the election results from Gudun Karya,” he said. Responding, the Returning Officer for the ward, Mr Muhammad, denied that any accreditation was done manually.

He noted that the only issues that arose were from the Zagabutu village, where thugs accosted the polling unit election officials and forced them to alter the results before letting them go. However, upon return to the Registration Area centre for the collation of ward results, the presiding officer for the polling unit informed Mr Muhammad that they were going to change the result back to what it was before the inflation of votes orchestrated by the thugs.

“So, I collected the BVAS and checked and what they recorded tallied with the number of accredited voters,” he said. “So, I didn’t accredit anything manual.” Reacting to the development, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Kuje Area Council, Abubakar Dambu, expressed displeasure over the cancellations on the result sheets and urged APC representative to put his complaint in writing to the INEC office.