By Tejiri Ebikeme
Last Saturday Presidential and National Assembly election may have come and gone, but reactions have continued to trail the exercise.
At the Delta Central Senatorial district, the Labour Party (LP), alleged that the INEC officials in connivance with the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) under the full glare of security agents, rigged the Delta Central Senatorial and House of Assembly elections.
The Delta State gubernatorial candidate on the platform of the Labour Party, LP, Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru and Obaisi Omo-Agege, the Delta Central Senatorial candidate for the LP in company of some party chieftains on a protest to the INEC office in Ughelli, alleged that the PDP has been changing results in areas where the LP won convincingly and turning in results in areas where elections did not hold at all, insisting that the card readers and ballot papers be interrogated before collation of results continued.
Chief Great Ogboru, expressed dismay that 72 hours after localised elections, results are still been collated because according to him the results did not emanate from the elections.
“What is being collated at this point in time is not from the elections that took place on Saturday. When you collate results not backed by empirical materials, then you are collating rubbish. We are insisting that process must be followed, they should produce all the materials to back this result up before they are announced, we are concerned with the Senatorial and House of Representatives elections, that’s why we are here”
He then officially presented a protest letter to the returning officer, Professor Rex Okagbare.
Speaking with newsmen, Chief Ogboru revealed that the upcoming governorship election sheets in the state also being
tampered with.
“Let me use this opportunity to tell members of the press that even as we speak, the governorship results are being tamped with, because when were sorting out the materials for the presidential and senatorial elections, few days ago, it became crystal clear that the material have been tampered with. We saw results sheet littered all over the place in Central Bank. Why are they not in the cartons or package they were brought in? We took serial numbers and photocopies of those result sheets “.He submitted.
While questioning the integrity of most of the people deployed to the state for the elections, he called on the INEC chairman Professor Attahiru Jega for a change of all the INEC electoral officers.
On his part, Barrister Ovie Obarisi Omo-Agege expressed dissatisfaction with the role of INEC and security agents accusing them of complicity in the last Saturday elections.
Omo-Agege, sighting Ekakprame ward in Ughelli South, which he said is the largest, all the electoral materials were carted away by some PDP chieftains.
He also said elections did not hold at Okwagbe, yet results were at the INEC office.
He alleged that the Electoral Officer (E.O) of Ughelli deliberately held on to the results sheets and refused to hand them to the agents at any of the units, only to show up at INEC office to collate results.
“You cannot collate a fraud. We insist that the forms EC8a, EC8b as well as the card readers and ballot papers be brought, invite other parties’ candidates and agents and let us go through them together, the card readers and other materials must be interrogated. We want the right thing to be done, anyone who wins should do so honourably. The wishes of the people must be respected.
LP members are peace loving, but should not be taken for granted. Enough is enough”. Omo-Agege warned.
Both Chief Ogboru and Obarisi Omo-Agege however called on the LP loyalists to be calm.
Chief Ogbarode Ogbon, the senatorial elections agent of the All Progressives Congress, APC aligned with the demand of the LP saying the elections were marred with fraud.
Meanwhile, the INEC Returning Officer, Professor Rex Okagbare who had earlier said suspending the collation of results was beyond his power, later told newsmen that he was suspending the collation following the protest.
