The Labour Party (LP) in protest of the conduct of Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections in parts of Rivers State has asked the commission to cancel unverified and manipulated results arising from the polls.
This was made known on Sunday, through a statement issued by the National Chairman of the Labour Party, Julius Abure, where he alleged that elections were manipulated in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo and Rumukoro amongst others in Rivers.
Political thugs disrupted elections
Abure also claimed that political thugs invaded various polling units and collation centres, took away election materials including the results sheets and “manipulated the BVAS machines and uploaded fake results into the Central portal”.
- He stated, “We took particular note of incidences in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro and several other areas where Labour Party was clearly leading in virtually all the polling units with very wide margins.’’
He alleged that at the polling units in Governor Nyesom Wike’s compound in Worji, the LP scored 323 votes against 5 votes by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and 2 votes by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Accuses INEC of betraying the trust of Nigerians
The LP chairman, however, claimed that security agents were used to snatching ballot papers.
- He said, “Nigerians went into this election based on the assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that the deployment of BVAS was a perfect antidote to electoral malpractices in Nigeria, but what transpired across Nigeria, if allowed to stand is purely a betrayal of trust by millions of Nigerians on INEC.”
- “Some of these manipulations happened way into late in the night. We demand that INEC investigate these atrocities against Nigerian voters by the political class.
- “We are therefore asking that INEC should rise to the occasion and cancel all the unverified and manipulated results arising from the presidential and national assembly elections in parts of Rivers state, particularly in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo and Rumukoro amongst others.”
For the record
- There have been reports of pockets of violence in some parts of Lagos, Edo, Imo, Bayelsa, Kogi and some other states during the conduct of Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections despite assurances by the Nigerian Police Force and other security agencies.
- Some of these violent activities by these alleged political thugs include invasion of polling units and carting away ballot boxes, burning of electoral materials, attacks on voters who are perceived not to be sympathetic to their preferred candidates and so on