The Labour Party (LP) asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday to cancel “unverified and manipulated results” from Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections in Rivers State.
In a statement, the party’s National Chairman, Julius Abure, claimed that elections in Rivers were rigged in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, and Rumukoro, among others.
He also alleged 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”.
“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 stated.
Abure alleged that at the polling units in Governor Nyesom Wike’s compound in Worji, the LP scored 323 votes against All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which polled 5 and 2 votes respectively.
The LP chairman, however, claimed that security agents were used to snatch ballot papers.
“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.”