INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu
INEC plotting to manipulate FCT results ‘to please Tinubu, APC’
Presidential Campaign Council of the Labour Party (PCC-LP) in the 2023 elections has alleged ongoing plots by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to manipulate results of the February 25 poll conducted in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) following controversies surrounding the issue of 25 per cent votes cast.
INEC had on March 1, 2023 declared the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, as winner of the February 25 poll amid rejection by opposition parties over electoral discrepancies and failure of the president-elect not securing 25 per cent of total votes cast in the FCT as required by the Electoral Act as amended, and the Nigerian Constitution.
The matter, however, is presently before the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) being one of the grounds sought by petitioners; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), LP and their respective candidates; Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, in their petitions to overturn the election of Tinubu.
Petitioners are praying that Justices at the PEPT provide legal interpretation to the portion of the Electoral Act as it relates to the 25 per cent of total votes cast in the FCT.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party has raised an alarm over attempts by the INEC to ‘tinker with the results of some states including the FCT to enable the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, to be in good standing.’
INEC is expected to begin its defence at the PEPT on Monday, July 3 after the petitioners had taken their turns in the past three weeks to tender documents backing their claims that the February 25 should be annulled due to discrepancies committed by the electoral umpire and other stakeholders.
The Obi-Datti Presidential Campaign, in a statement issued, Saturday, and signed by its Director, Diran Onifade, quoted a member of the Council, Mr. Oseloka H. Obaze, as claiming that INEC was plotting to doctor the results for reasons only known only to them.
“According to our source, INEC is tempering with the machines used in the election to adjust FCT results to give the APC candidate, the much-needed 25%, which he did not get as per the initial INEC declaration and for which he is being challenged at the Presidential election tribunal.
“It’s not clear how the Electoral Commission can brazenly carry out such bizarre action but given the abracadabra they did to announce the APC Candidate winner by 4 a.m., there is nothing to be taken for granted.
“Mr. Obaze warns that INEC and the ruling APC may be taking the adherence to the rule of law and due process disposition of Nigerians in general and the Obidient Movement in particular for granted, but it would be courting catastrophe for them to want to pour salt into an open wound inflicted on Nigeria’s electorate,” the LP statement read.
Obaze further reminded INEC that what they were trying to do was tantamount to raising a dead horse and that whether reports were fake or real, the commission should know the level of public confidence in them had long been eroded.
