NASS election: PDP candidates fault INEC conduct, call for form EC8A review
Lagos PDP candidates in the just-concluded National Assembly election have called on INEC to audit and review all collated results with Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the Lagos West and Lagos Central senatorial districts.
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Legit.ng reports that while addressing a news conference in Lagos on Thursday, March 2, the candidates jointly pointed out that they didn’t lose the elections going by the results obtained by their agents from each of the polling units in their constituencies and districts as contained in INEC Form EC8A used to record votes.
Source: Original
They claimed that the INEC must use the window of seven days allowed by law to compare and audit results announced with the one transmitted through BVAS into INEC IReV (result viewing portal)
The candidates at the conference include Deacon Segun Adewale, the PDP senatorial candidate for Lagos West and his counterpart in Lagos Central, Prince Wale Gomez, the PDP candidate in Oshodi-Isolo federal constituency I, Olumuyiwa Owadara, and his counterpart in Somolu, Oluwaseyi Olowu (Chicago)
In his address, Adewale, popularly known as Aeroland, said that he was still marvelled at where INEC got the figure collated to return the winner in the poll, saying the figure did not correspond with what PDP agents had in Form EC8A used to record votes by each political party.
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He said:
"There was no genuine and transparent collation of results anywhere in Lagos. INEC only declared who they want to declare. This cheating is just too much. What we experienced at the poll was the stealing of people's mandate brazenly.
"How can the electoral umpire connive with some politicians to turn my results upside down? I even defeated my rival from APC (Dr Idiat Adebule) in her polling unit in Ojo LGA.
"I have my results all over, it is disheartening to hear I lost elections when you cooked up figures not minding what happened at the polling units and fact check by BVAS."
Aeroland said that PDP's field agents had results from all the polling units in Lagos West senatorial district comprising 10 LGAs, alleging that the summation/collation of those results at ward and local government levels was tampered with.
He added:
"All we are saying is that let us have a summation of Form EC8A. This is not too much to ask INEC. Over 90% of those results were not signed by our agents because they did not reflect polling units' figures scored by each party.
"Our agents refused to sign because the results that we have with us are different from the results INEC brought there for collation. The results being collated at different levels must be the summation of EC8A, EC8B, EC8C and EC8D. Let INEC upload it and sum it up.
"There is no need for a rerun, our results show that we won. Form EC8A shows that we won. This form is our only saving grace but INEC refuse to upload this."
Adewale decried that INEC had declared some people winners and losers even when it was still battling with uploading Form EC8A days after elections took place.
He alleged that through the back door during collation the votes accrued to him were deliberately reduced like in Amuwo-Odofin, Ajeromi Ifelodun, Oshodi-Isolo, Agege, Ojo and other LGAs.
Adewale noted:
"Right now, what we have seen on our own Form EC8A is totally different from about 30 per cent of results INEC uploaded thus far on the INEC IREV portal for results viewing."
Adewale said that if nothing was done to the petition asking INEC to review the election results, the group would have no option other than to go the court to get back their allegedly stolen mandate.
According to him, all entreaties to collation officers at various levels of collations to fact-check the results with BVAS (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System) proved abortive.
Also speaking, Gomez explained that his LGA agent refused to sign the results, "because what he got in his hand is different from what INEC staff were producing for collation."
Gomez called on INEC to ensure that the wrongs and injustices were corrected with the commission's seven days window to review results.
Speaking, Owadara, the chairman of the forum of PDP House of Representatives candidates for the 2023 general election said that the group was not going to accept the results and would never do.
Owadara said:
"We will pursue it and we are ready to go to any length to get back our mandate. We won the election in Lagos state. We are not accepting the results."
Owadara said that he also won the election but so many polling units were scattered by political thugs to disrupt the exercise.
INEC had collated results and announced winners of the federal constituencies and senatorial districts, which mostly favoured APC and Labour Party candidates.
Reacting to the allegations of manipulation by PDP, the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Lagos, Olusegun Agbaje, said that it had become difficult if not impossible for anyone to change election results nowadays.
President-elect Bola Tinubu makes 1 strong promise to Nigerians
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu promised to hit the ground running from his first day in office in order to deliver on his campaign promises.
It was reported that Tinubu also said that his promise to run a fair and inclusive administration that would unite all Nigerians.
In a statement signed by Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, the media officer of the president-elect, Tinubu said this on Thursday, March 2, in Abuja when he received members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who were on a congratulatory visit to his residence in Abuja.
Source: Legit.ng
