Sequel to the walk out in protest by some political parties from the national collation centre yesterday, three parties namely the Peoples Democratic Party and the African Democratic Congress, held a joint press conference on Tuesday where they called for the cancellation of the presidential election held on Saturday February 25, due to widespread malpractices and the refusal of the INEC to upload the polling units results on its viewing portal.

At the Press briefing addressed by the Chairmen of the three political parties LP National Chairman, Julius Abure; the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu; as well as their ADC counterpart, Ralph Nwosu. They alleged that Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections were manipulated by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at polling units by their failure to upload results electronically on the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

Protest in Abuja over failure of INEC to upload results

The briefing was anchored by Mr. Julius Abure of the Labour Party, who started by saying “what has happened is not a pleasant development, we should be celebrating democracy but we have is the allocation of figures by INEC.

The three parties said they have lost confidence in the ongoing electoral process because it has been heavily compromised and therefore called for the resignation of the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu and want another person to take over and complete the process.

According to the Parties, the election is a sham and the INEC has failed Nigerians in the conduct adding that “If you send your child to school and your child fails, your child will be asked to repeat the class. INEC has failed so therefore INEC should repeat the process.”

To query the integrity of the INEC, Senator Dino Melaye played ta one-minute voice of the INEC chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu where he debunked a report making the rounds that INEC has changed its mind on uploading the polling units results on its IREV on election day saying it is not true and further restated that INEC exists to satisfy the citizens and that the results would be uploaded on its viewing portal. “The 2023 election is going to be our best ever election”, he declared

“The election is irretrievably compromised and we have totally lost faith in the entire process. We demand that this sham of an election should be immediately cancelled, We also call for a fresh election to be carried out Labour Party chairman Julius Abure told reporters along with representatives of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the ADC.

As a prelude to this event, history almost repeated itself at the ICC venue of the presidential election collation centre on Monday when Senator Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party and the polling agent of Atiku Abubakar challenged the method of collation and announcement of results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but when the election umpire did not oblige his request walked out in protest from the centre.

It was a similar situation eight years ago, in 2015, when collation agent of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Elder Godsday Orubebe almost disrupted the collation the 2015 presidential election at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. He held down progress for hours but Senator Melaye’s intervention was for a shorter time.

Drama ensued when Senator Melaye first alleged that there was overvoting in the figures presented on Sunday by Prof Akeem Olawale Lasisi, the Vice Chancellor Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila Orogun, Osun State and called for the results presentation at the polling units be displayed on the INEC website for comparison with the results presented by the State’s Collation Officers.

His words: “agents are not here to rubberstamp what State Collation Officers from states bring here, section 65 of the Electoral Act is clear on this. We cannot move forward except the law is respected. The INEC Chairman had promised 68 time that election results would be transmitted electronically, Barrister Festus Okoye, a INEC Federal Commissioner too had promised the nation 118 times, if we continue, the integrity of the process will stand undermined”.

Mr. Babatunde Ogala, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria who said he was not on the same page with Senator Melaye urged the Commission to proceed with its constitutional duty. The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, while responding said, “Dino, you are now deliberately being obstructive.“

Some other party agents made a similar demand like Senator Melaye. He, along with others subsequently staged a walk out from the venue of the collation.

INEC Debunks Allegation of Overvoting in Ekiti

Meanwhile, the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday dismissed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s claim of over-voting in Saturday’s presidential election in Ekiti State. INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this during the ongoing presentation of collated results of the presidential election at the National Collation Centre, Abuja.

The Ekiti State’s results were the first to be officially called at the national collation centre on Sunday in Abuja. The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu scored 210,494 votes in the election while the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar scored 89,554 votes to come second.

The agent of the PDP, Senator Dino Melaye had on Sunday shortly after the presentation of the Ekiti state result asked the INEC Chairman whether the result had been uploaded before the State Collation Officers for Presidential Election (SCOPE) came to do the presentation.

However, at the resumption of proceedings on Monday, PDP’s agent, Senator Melaye, called for the cancellation of the results for alleged overvoting. He said that there were about 800 excess votes cast in Ekiti State.

But the INEC Chairman Prof. Yakubu, said that there was no overvoting in Ekiti State and the results could even be called undervoting due to the reduction in the number of valid votes cast compared to the number of accredited voters and permanent voters card (PVCs) collected.

Prof Yakubu said there was no over-voting in Ekiti State as party agents had appended their signatures in agreement to the result sheets. He also said that the figure quoted by the PDP agent did not emanate from the commission as presented on Sunday stressing that he had read a different version of the social media claiming that the result sheet was signed days before the election