Rivers State – The Labour Party (LP) has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to cancel “unverified and manipulated results” arising from Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections in parts of Rivers State.
Labour party chairman, Julius Abure, in a statement released on Sunday, February 26, alleged that elections were manipulated in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo and Rumukoro amongst others in Rivers.
Abure said 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”.
Labour Party chairman who alleged that they garnered 323 votes against the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which polled 5 and 2 votes respectively in polling units located at Governor Nyesom Wike’s compound in Worji, added that security agents were used to snatch ballot papers.
The statement read;
“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.
“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.”