Following the conduct of the Governorship and state Assembly elections in Rivers State, the All Progressives Congress has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to investigate officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission and all those who served as adhoc staff and returning officers in the State.
Speaking during the announcement of the governorship election at the INEC State Collation Centre in Port Harcourt on Monday, the Returning Agent for the APC, Michael West, claimed that INEC officials and ad hoc staff were induced in hard currency, to rig the elections in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party.
West rejected the governorship result from Asari Toru Local Government, which he said was not collated completely before the process was obstructed and materials taken away by the Electoral Officer, who promised to call all the agents to continue collation.
The APC state collation agent who doubles as the Patrick Tonye-Cole Director General of Campaign Organization, said the EO never returned to complete the collation at the LGA level, but came with results to be announced at the INEC state head office.
He insisted that the number of accredited voters in the INEC portal is different from the figures announced by the returning officer.
“Materials and results were taken away with the collation officers and the security chief to an unknown destination.
“We were waiting this morning to see if we will be called to the collation centre for the collation to go on. The only collation that went on were the assembly results and the governorship wasn’t done.
“And we did not get any information. That woman sitting there, calling herself associate prof,
is giving us the result of governorship.
“Now, let me also say this, that in INEC server, if you check, we have 251 units in Asari Toru LGA and 176 were uploaded and it means that there was no election in 75 units.
“They carted away the materials and went and cooked up these results. I went to the INEC server and saw that the results were mutilated.
“I want to call on the EFCC to please probe into all the people that served in this election,” he added.
Similarly, the collation agents for the Labour Party, Fred Umeji and his counterpart from the Social Democratic Party, Salvation Moses, in their presentation at the INEC head office in PortHarcourt, said most of the figures presented do not tally with what was uploaded in the INEC portal.
They accused the state returning officer of compromise, insisting that the Resident Electoral Officer and the Returning Officer have the legal right to suspend the announcement of results when they have been contested by other parties.
In his response, the State Returning Officer, Professor Akpofure Ron-Rukeh said the electoral act has responded to most of the questions raised, and insisted that announcement of results must continue.
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