Julius Abure, national chairman of the Labour Party has cried foul over what he said is the manipulation and manufacturing of results by INEC officials in states across the country particularly Lagos, Edo, Rivers and Imo.
At a press briefing at the party headquarters in Abuja, the party’s national chairman, also decried the violence metted out on Labour Party supporters.
The party called on INEC to cancel the presidential results which they describe as manufactured in parts of the country particularly Rivers State.
They asked President Muhammadu Buhari to keep his word of ensuring the 2023 elections are free fair and credible.
The party also stated that they will only accept true results obtained at the polling units.
“Nigerians participated in this process with the belief that the use of technology and adherence to the agreed electronic transmission of results to INEC servers at polling units would ensure a free, fair, and transparent elections,” he said.
“Traditionally, Nigerians know that previous elections witnessed manipulations of results by desperate politicians at collation centres and polling units.
“But, yesterday, being Saturday, February 25, 2023, the very process which INEC assured Nigerians would be followed was truncated for whatever reasons. No matter what those reasons are, they are totally unacceptable to Nigerians and members of the party.
“INEC servers shut down and ONLY PRESIDENTIAL elections could not be uploaded on to the INEC server.
“The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) did not work as planned.
‘This failure no doubt as given room for manipulation of the presidential results being announced by the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu at the Collation Centre in Abuja.
“We have sufficient documentary evidence that confirm that manipulations of the presidential elections results have occurred in Lagos, Rivers, Imo, Parts of Edo State, Delta State, and some Northern States.
“These manipulations were carried out under the watchful eyes and connivance of police officers at the various election units and INEC officers.
“The decision of INEC to go ahead to announce these doctored results based on manufactured voting has defeated the efforts made by Nigerians to see that the Electoral Act was amended to allow for electronic transmission of results.
“It is disheartening that 24 hours after the elections held across the country that INEC is still yet to upload the authentic results of the Presidential poll on its server.
“The excuse that the server is down is not tenable. Because we had meeting with INEC before the elections and the electoral umpire assured all political parties, and indeed Nigerians, that they had a DATA RECOVERY SERVER and in the event of a technical hitch, the emergency server would be used until the main server was brought back online.
“We find it difficult to accept the flimsy excuse that the INEC servers were down.”
This is totally unacceptable from INEC. How long will INEC continue to compromise and deny electorates their rightful candidates. INEC should cancell this election. Disenfranchisement and intimidation of electorates by political thugs alone is enough for INEC to call for cancellation, let alone the manipulation of results by INEC. This is totally unacceptable from INEC.