CPC petitions INEC, demands cancellation of results

The Congress for Political Change has sent a petition to the Independent National Electoral Commission, demanding the cancellation of the presidential election results from the South-South and South-East. The party’s petition, which was addressed to the commission’s chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega and dated April 18, 2011, was signed by National Secretary of the CPC, Mr. Buba Galadima. In the petition, the CPC claimed that elections in these two zones were not done in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act. It alleged that the results from the zones were “substantially affected by massive irregularities.” The party said its agents at most of the polling booths informed its leadership that members of the public were intimidated and driven away from the polling units, while ballot papers were not deposited in the ballot box in open view of the public. The petition read, “The ballot boxes were on account of the above, thumb printed with multiple votes in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party at the election with one compromised voter thumb printing multiply for the presidential candidate of the PDP at the expense of other candidates of the opposition parties. “Votes were recorded for the voters that were not personally in attendance at the polling unit and in most cases at the polling units other than the ones to which the voters were allotted with the effect that the ballot boxes were stuffed with finger impression of voters whose biometric data does not relate to the polling unit in respect of which the ballot were cast. “There were clear absence of accreditation of voters in most of the polling units and the regulated procedure for the conduct of the election was as a result violently breached to the advantage of the PDP at whose instance the ballot were massively thumb printed in clear disregard of the number of registered voters and voters register on which account there was eventually no commensurate correlation between registered voters, accredited voters and eventual record of the cleared result.” The party also claimed that it suspected that the excel programme installed in the computers of INEC across the country was deliberately designed to short-change the party. This, it said, could be attested to by the “unfolding situation of Katsina and Kano States where the manual calculation of the results revealed that our party was shot changed by hundreds of thousands of valid votes when the results were manually reviewed.” It therefore called on the commission to order the Resident Electoral Commissioners in these zones to produce the statement of result, ballot papers, and voter register from their states for analysis. It also called on the commission to investigate the allegation of excel application programme installation in the field computers of the commission, which it said was deliberately done in favour of the PDP. The CPC therefore called for the cancellation of the results from the zones, if the allegations levelled against the PDP and the commission in the two zones were found to be correct. Speaking with journalists when he came to the collation centre, Galadima said his party won the election. Galadima, who was barred from entering the premises said “most of the candidates the results were written at home and announced and we are not accepting that.” Asked where they were written, he said “It was written where they wrote them. You know where the results were written. South East and South -South where there was no elections. I can tell you the details. “Also, we are disagreeing with the results of Sokoto, Adamawa, Plateau, Nassarawa, Benue, FCT Jigawa, among others. We are disagreeing. All results must be subjected to Forensic analysis before it is announced. “ By Olusola Fabiyi, Abuja Courtesy Of: Punch