The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to immediately announce the results of the Saturday presidential election and declare Atiku Abubakar winner.
Atiku is PDP’s presidential candidate.
The leading opposition party said its charge was based on the “clear and verifiable results across the nation, showing that Atiku Abubakar is in clear lead both in spread and total number of votes cast.”
PDP, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, accused INEC of delaying the announcement of results “following directives by the Buhari Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC), which are bent on altering the figures from the polling centers and allocate fictitious figures for President Muhammadu Buhari, particularly in northern states.”
“Curiously, INEC server is now shut down, results are no more being transmitted and the reason is to enable the APC to inflate figures from six designated states,” the PDP alleged.
It called on international observers and election monitors to insist on a transparent process of transmission of results and the monitoring thereof.
It claimed to have reports of how APC governors in the northern states had been making desperate effort to tamper with the results of the elections in their respective states with the view to award conjured votes to President Buhari.
“In Kogi state, Governor Yahaya Bello has been making frantic moves to change results to suit APC’s intent and purposes as against the wishes of the people, expressly delivered at the polls.
“Nigerians already know how the Minister of Transportation and the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign, Rotimi Amaechi, used the military to hold an INEC official in River state, Mrs. Mary Efeturi, hostage and insisted that she will not be released until she alters the results in favour of President Buhari,” the party alleged.
While insisting that INEC should announce the result, PDP warned the commission’s chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to note that with the aid of technology, Nigerians already had the results as delivered at the polling centers and any attempt to alter any figure would be seriously resisted.
“In delaying the announcement of the results, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu is allowing the APC to turn him into a villain and directly pitching him against the people. He should therefore extricate himself from the rejected APC and be on the side of the people, by immediately announcing the results as already delivered at the polling units and declare, the people’s candidate, Atiku Abubakar, the winner.
“Anything short of this is not acceptable to Nigerians, who had already expressed their wishes and aspiration at the polls,” PDP stressed.
