With the general elections concluded, attention has now shifted to the tribunal where aggrieved parties have moved with the aim of upturning the results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Among States of high interest are Akwa Ibom and Rivers, the international election observers falls short of calling the elections in these two states a sham. It was an election riddled with malpractices. The All Progressives Congress (APC), is crying foul over what the party called monumental rigging of governorship and house of assembly elections.
In Akwa Ibom, for instance, the APC in the State, on Friday, painted a picture before the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, on how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rigged the polls conducted in the state. According to the party, the results declared contradicted the number of voters accredited through the card reader machine used in verifying the Permanent Voters Cards at the polling units.
Whereas the card reader captured 437,128 voters and transmitted same to INEC in Abuja, for the governorship and House of Assembly elections, the figure declared by the state INEC office was 1,122,836 – a difference of 685708.
The Akwa Ibom State APC stakeholders led by the APC Governorship candidate, Umana Okon Umana, said having challenged the result of the elections conducted in the state in the court, the facts of the elections balloting as made available by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), National Headquarters showed that the result of votes declared for the PDP was actually more than the figure of voters officially accredited by INEC for the elections at the polling booths on the elections date.
He said, “Your Excellency, we are pleased to inform you that we have challenged the outcome of the purported elections at the Tribunals.
“It may interest you, Sir, to know also that figures declared in the elections by the Akwa Ibom State INEC office were at variance significantly with figures captured by card readers and transmitted to INEC database in the Commission office in Abuja.
“For instance, data obtained from INEC Head Office in Abuja show that the total number of accredited voters captured by card readers for the gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections in Akwa Ibom State was 437,128, but the figure declared by the state INEC office was 1,122,836.
“By INEC guidelines, use of the card reader was mandatory in the gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections” he said. The team also urged Buhari to revisit the bloodletting that characterised the elections in the state during the election.
“Your position on electoral reform is therefore apt, and we wish to commend you on your determination to reform and reposition the electoral process to make elections more credible in Nigeria. “With specific reference to the manifold cases of violence and bloodshed that rocked our state before and during the general elections, we demand justice for the families of those who were killed and maimed. “We also hope that those who masterminded those crimes of electoral violence and fraud would not be allowed to escape justice”.
The case is not different from Rivers, a State under the control of Buhari’s campaign director during the March 28 presidential polls, Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi. The Governor’s arch-political rival, Nyesom Wike of the PDP was declared winner of the election, having polled 1,029,102, which represents 87.77 per cent of the votes while the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, came second with 124,896 votes (10.65 per cent). The result had since remained subject of controversy with some international monitors insisting that no election was conducted in the State.
Besides, the APC in Rivers have continued to accuse the INEC of frustrating its petition before the tribunal. State Chairman of the APC, Davies Ikanya, who spoke on the matter, called on the world to prevail on the REC, Dame Gesila Khan, to release the election documents to enable it meet up with the deadline in filing its petition at the election tribunal.
He stated that the party had severally officially written to INEC in the state and appealed to the commission’s Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, for the release of election documents, stressing that the REC had refused to provide the materials. Ikanya said the party resorted to calling for the world’s intervention because it had exhausted available means to get the election documents from the REC.
He wondered why the REC allegedly refused to release the materials, maintaining that her refusal had confirmed APC’s fear that there was no election result in the state as at the time of the polls. Ikanya stated: “The difficulty in getting the documents has confirmed our fear that the result sheets never existed.” He disclosed that out of the 17 documents requested, only one was released to his team.
But the INEC fought back maintaining that it did not deny the APC access to documents to challenge election results at the tribunal. Mr Roy Obijuru, the Administrative Secretary of INEC in the state, said the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mrs Gesila Khan, had released documents to the APC on demand. He added that INEC had received reports alleging that it had frustrated moves by the APC to collect documents for the election tribunal to challenge the election results.
He said that INEC received an application from APC on April 12 to release Certified True Copy of forms EC8C, EC8C (1) and EC40 (G) for the Governorship and House of Assembly elections for the 23 local government areas. “Records show that representatives of APC in the state and other political parties that applied commenced the collection of the requested documents from April 16 to April 29.’’ The statement said a second application for Certified True of Forms and Electoral Documents for the Governorship and House of Assembly elections in the 23 local government areas of the state was received on April 28.
The two states will be at the epicenter of the election tribunals in the country going by the magnanimity of the alleged shape practices executed during the elections.
