The Independent National Electoral Commission on Monday continued its declaration of results of the gubernatorial and state Houses of Assembly elections conducted across the country on Saturday.
INEC declared governorship poll in six states inconclusive for the first time since 1999 that the nation embraced democracy. The states affected are Kano, Sokoto, Benue, Bauchi, Adamawa and Plateau.
While INEC has stopped the announcement of results in Rivers State due to the violence that engulfed the state, the commission has also controversially halted the announcement of the governorship election in Kano State which shows the Peoples Democratic Party is leading.
Consequently, the PDP has accused the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, of allegedly playing the script of the ruling All Progressives Congress by declaring governorship elections in these states inconclusive.
It claimed that the commission carried out the action in states where it (the PDP) was in clear lead.
The former ruling party insisted that INEC had become overtly partisan, surrendered its independence to the APC and carried on as “a compromised umpire with obnoxious impunity, thereby sending signals of being heavily bribed by the APC to alter results for its candidates.”
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, who spoke at a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, insisted that the party was in possession of intelligence reports that INEC was being remotely controlled by the Presidency.
He said this was why the commission had refused to declare the full outcome of the governorship elections in some states.
He said, “The PDP has full intelligence of how INEC is acting on instructions from the Buhari Presidency and the APC in orchestrating unwholesome situations and declaring already concluded governorship elections in Sokoto, Adamawa, Bauchi, Plateau as well as other states as inconclusive, immediately it became obvious that the PDP was set to win.
“This also informs the foisting of unexplainable stoppage and delays in the announcement of already collated results in other states where the PDP is clearly leading the race, from the results so far declared at the polling units.
“Our party has also been informed of how INEC is now seeking ways to use the situation to aid the APC to alter the results and announce the APC candidates as winners in the elections clearly led by the PDP just as it did in the 2018 Osun State governorship election.
“In some of the states like Rivers, the PDP has information of plots by the APC to leverage the declaration by INEC to unleash more violence on the state and push for isolated election where they can bring in more security forces to concentrate on forcefully taking over the state.
“Already, in Rivers State, INEC is under heavy pressure from the Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation and the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, to redeploy and replace the state Resident Electoral Commissioner as well as the Administrative Secretary.
“This will be totally unacceptable, completely provocative and shall be firmly resisted by the people even if the totality of our nation’s security is deployed to Rivers State.”
Ologbondiyan said that results of all the state assembly elections in Rivers State had been declared and winners had emerged.
He cautioned Yakubu and the commission to perish the thought of altering any figures for the APC and to immediately announce the results in these states and others where he claimed the PDP candidates clearly won, going by the results already declared at the poling units, wards and local government collation centres.
He said that anything short of this would attract the “legitimate wrath of the people.”
Ologbondiyan also said that Nigerians were already aware that elections had been concluded in the affected states; results collated and declared at the polling units, wards and local government collation centres and all returning officers and “political parties conclusively have the figures.”
He said, “Prof. Yakubu must have noted how his name is becoming synonymous with electoral manipulations, among Nigerians, and the fact that our citizens and international community hold him responsible for the rigging of the presidential and other elections for the APC.
“Today, majority of Nigerians and the global democratic institutions are questioning the state of our democracy and electoral processes, which have been under siege under the supervision of President Buhari and Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
“In the light of these INEC’s manipulative tendencies, the PDP therefore charges our leaders, teeming members and lovers of democracy in the affected states to immediately commence a march to INEC offices and use all legitimate means to protect our mandate as freely given by the people at the polling units across the nation.”
