PDP, LP, Others Alleged Manipulation; Walked Out of National Collation Center

The National Collation Agents for the People Democratic Party, Labour Party among others have staged a walkout of the national collation centre in Abuja. The PDP Agent, Dino Melaye led other aggrieved party agents after alleging a gross manipulation of the process. 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had resumed the collation of the presidential election when PDP and Labour Party agents raised concerns about the process particularly, the uploading of the result on the INEC Server. 

Melaye alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission has been compromised and the election was rigged in favour of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress.

Addressing the press after the walkout, Melaye said “Having observed that the Chairman of INEC is determined to rig the elections by making sure that results are not uploaded, by vehemently making a presentation that makes it look as if we are all here to rubber- stamp the fraud cooked between INEC and the APC, we are saying we are not here to rubberstamp the electoral fraud that has been prepared by INEC and the APC”. 

“We are Nigerians. There is nowhere on the server that results have been uploaded. The political parties here staged a walkout to express the unfortunate politicisation and commercialisation of our electoral process,” he concluded. 

The opposition parties that rejected the process without the result not being uploaded on the INEC server otherwise known as iREV noted that INEC is violating the Electoral Act by going ahead with the result collation and announcement despite not uploading the results. 

Agents of some other parties, including those of the SDP, LP and ADP had expressed similar views, thereby leading to a solidarity of purpose. 

Investors King understands that uploading results to the INEC server have been a subject of controversy even before the collation of the result started. The INEC had stated that the traffic on the server is huge, thereby affecting its efficiency.