Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP) and Action Alliance (AA) have called for the cancellation of the presidential election of Ekiti state, citing alleged over voting.
The State Collation Officer for Ekiti State, Prof. Akeem Lasisi, on Sunday declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election in Ekiti.
He said Tinubu scored a total of 201,494 votes; Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 89,554 votes, while Labour Party’s candidate, Peter Obi garnered 11,397 votes and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) polled 264 votes.
But at the resumption of collation of the presidential results yesterday in Abuja, the agent of the PDP, Senator Dino Melaye argued that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should cancel the election because there was over voting.
His words: “I worked on the result as presented and I discovered that we have 987,647 registered voters in Ekiti and 301,558 accredited. The result that was presented yesterday, APC had 201,494. If you subtract that from 301,558, what you have left is 100,064. Out of this 100,064, PDP scored 89,554. If you subtract that from the balance of 100,064, what is left is 10,510 and now it was also recorded that the Labour Party had 12,397 when the total left is 10,510. Meaning an over figure of 887.
“Apart from this 887 surplus, we have not calculated the votes of other political parties. Because you will recall that yesterday he told us that ADC scored 1,027.
“You will see from that presentation yesterday that the figure did not add up. There was over voting and the number of votes outnumber the number of accredited votes and we know exactly what the law says concerning that. I move that should be considered because Ekiti cannot stand,” Melaye posited.
In his submission, the Presidential agent of Labour Party, Hon. Umar Farouk Ibrahim, also aligned with the argument of Melaye, saying his party also observed the same anomaly and therefore called for rejection of the votes from Ekiti.
On his part, the Presidential agent for Action Alliance, Kenneth Udeze also called on the electoral body to cancel the election result from Ekiti state.
According to him, This calculation and position of my colleagues here, Action Alliance has gone through that same figure and we got the same similar position. We will like the commission to look at it and the Ekiti state result should be cancelled for over voting based on our calculation.
On his part, the agent of APC, Babatunde Ogala said since the result has been declared, any aggrieved party should head to court.
He said: “I think the law is clear that when a result has been declared, we should resort to petition, if need be. Ekiti was declared yesterday, we were asked for observation, and if that had been done , any party that feels troubled should prepare its petition.”
Baring his mind on the same issue, the presidential agent for National Rescue Movement, Safanaya Jisalo said the Electoral Act was not ambiguous, stressing that aggrieved parties should go to tribunal.
But Melaye argued that the result was only presented, not declared, insisting that only the chairman of INEC has the power to declare results.
Responding, INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu said Melaye quoted the wrong figure during his argument.
He, however, stressed that his observation was noted and the commission would look into it.
Yakubu stated: “I still insist that the figure presented by the state collection officer for the presidential election for Ekiti state, the total number of accredited voters is 315,058. This is what is on the spreadsheet that we screened yesterday. And this is also what is on the actual result manual recorded by the State Collation Officer for Presidential Election (SCOPE) and signed by the PDP agent and agents of other political parties back in Ekiti state.
“But having said that, I’ve taken note of your observations, let us make progress on that one. But what we have here is exactly what I’ve said. And any other figure that is at variance with this one cannot supersede the official result presented. Let’s make progress.”
Nevertheless, Melaye was unsatisfied with INEC’s chairman explanation and continued to disturb the proceeding while the Returning for Ondo state election was presenting his result.
After the presentation of the Ondo result, Melaye held a meeting with other party agents where they agreed that they would insist that INEC display the transmitted results on the screen.
Addressing journalists after their meeting, Melaye stated: “A few minutes ago, we raised the issue of the fact that in accordance with the provision of the Electoral Act, Section 60 and Section 64 of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended), that there will be transmission of results from the polling units. And then INEC chairman has repeatedly told Nigerians that there will be transmission of a lot of results from polling units directly to the server. “
“We find out that this has not been done. INEC failed in this regard. And when this issue was raised today, supported by other party agents, the national chairman of INEC evaded vehemently because what Section 47(3) emphasizes is that wherever that the BVAS failed, if they cannot get a replacement, election should be cancelled in those areas.
“And we have seen from the presentation of the results from yesterday that some places were cancelled as a result of bypassing BVAS. So the only way to detect that BVAS have been bypassed is for us to see the uploaded results.
And we insisted that the chairman should show us here the uploaded results state by state just like the way they are displaying the collated results they are presenting and that is the only way to test the veracity and authenticity of these results.”
“If not, we are only here to endorse the fraud that has been done from the units to the world to the states. We are not here to rubber stamp infractions. We are not here to rubber stamp the abnormalities that have been done. We are here to check them but the National Chairman of INEC is not given us opportunity to question what they are doing.”
Melaye said they are going to do everything humanly possible to make sure that the right thing is done.
According to him, We have just met with other political parties and we are going to make a presentation by the time we resume and if they insist that they are not going to respond to us, then you will see the action we will take.
“We will not allow it. We have suffered a lot of pain in this country, suffered poverty, hunger, kidnapping, killings. We will not allow a continuation of failure. We must make sure that the right thing is done.
