The collation officer for the May 18, 2026, All Progressives Congress, APC, senatorial primary election in Benue South, Dr Peter Sani Ochijele, has called on the police to investigate a disputed election result allegedly presented by one of the contestants, Hon. Nelson Godwin Onyilokwu Alapa.
Ochijele, through his lawyers, Paul E. Ikwe and Jeremiah O. Adoga, submitted a petition to the Commissioner of Police, Benue State Command, requesting an investigation into alleged alterations in the result sheet and the signature purportedly bearing his name.
In the September 30, 2026 petition addressed to the police commissioner in Makurdi, the collation officer rejected the document, insisting that its contents were inconsistent with the results of the primary election he supervised.
Recounting how the exercise was conducted, Ochijele disclosed that six aspirants contested the election, with results from the nine local government areas brought together at the senatorial district collation centre at Lux Haven Hotel, Otukpo.
He explained that after receiving and collating the figures submitted by the nine local government collation officers, he presented the results to the National Assembly Primary Election Collation Officer, Alhaji Sabiu Saidu Mahuta.
Mahuta subsequently declared Dr Francis Ottah Agbo winner of the contest and returned him elected after he secured 58,760 votes.
The figures announced at the collation centre showed that Hon. Joseph Ojobo came second with 6,782 votes, followed by Hon. Gabriel Oloche Agidani with 5,246 votes.
Hon. Dan Onje recorded 4,570 votes, while Alapa secured 4,312 votes. Hon. Patrick Idoko Ojechema finished with 2,732 votes.
According to Ochijele, the announcement was witnessed by party stakeholders, security operatives, representatives of the aspirants, and officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, who monitored the process.
He further stated that the official result sheet was endorsed by him and distributed to the agents of the contestants, INEC and other relevant bodies. Mahuta and his secretary, Dr Bashir Garba, also appended their signatures before the document was forwarded to the APC.
However, Ochijele said he subsequently learnt that Alapa had instituted a case at the Federal High Court in Abuja to challenge the outcome of the primary election.
He alleged that the result sheet submitted in connection with the court case contained figures different from those officially announced at the collation centre and presented Alapa as the winner of the exercise.
Rejecting the document, the collation officer clarified that his mandate was to aggregate and announce the results received from the local government collation officers, while the responsibility for declaring the winner and returning him elected belonged to Mahuta and his team.
He particularly expressed concern over the 24,788 votes allegedly attributed to Alapa in the disputed document, maintaining that the aspirant scored only 4,312 votes in the results officially announced.
Ochijele also denied appending his signature to the controversial result sheet, urging the police to authenticate the signature and compare it with his endorsement on the original election documents.
His lawyers insisted that their client did not recognise the disputed document as an authentic record of the election he supervised.
“Our client wishes to state categorically that the result which Hon. Nelson Godwin Onyilokwu Alapa has paraded in the processes filed in the court purporting to be the winner of the Benue South APC Senatorial Primary election did not originate or emanate from the election which our client was the Collation Agent,” the lawyers stated.
The solicitors further emphasised that Ochijele had disowned the signature on the document, calling for a thorough probe into how it was produced and subsequently presented in the court proceedings.
The petition urged the police to verify the authenticity of both result sheets, establish the source of the alleged discrepancies, and investigate whether any form of manipulation or other irregularity was involved.
It also requested a comparison of the disputed document with the original result announced at the Otukpo collation centre to determine the facts surrounding the controversy.