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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
The Labour Party (LP) has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to allow itself to be used to thwart the desires of Enugu State.
In a statement, yesterday, the National Chairman, Julius Abure, said the party had received information suggesting that INEC’s ongoing assessment of the governorship election results from Enugu State is biased against LP and in favour of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He said: “We do not want to believe that information even though we consider it very credible. We are also aware that INEC, having reviewed the information from the voters’ accreditation registrar, the BVAS and IReV should, by now, be aware that LP won the election clearly. We are, however, appalled that INEC is taking so much time in making a definite pronouncement on the outcome of the result which is already in the public sphere.
“However, for the sake of emphasis, we want to inform Nigerians the crux of the contention. According to the data from INEC at our disposal and that can be verified, the total number of registered voters in Nkanu East was 36,976. The number of permanent voters’ cards, collected was 27,594 and the number of voters accredited by BVAS on election day was 7,453.
“Having noticed that LP is cruising to victory with over 15,000 votes, the PDP, in collaboration with some compromised INEC officials, padded and announced 30,560 as votes earned by the PDP candidate. The intention obviously was to ensure PDP garners more votes than the LP.
“The LP is contesting this outrageous figure on the grounds that PDP couldn’t have scored votes more that the accredited votes for the local government area. Where did PDP get the votes because it is certainly not from that same election which held simultaneously with both the state Assembly and the Senate. None of these election recorded such magnitude of votes.”
The LP chairman demanded that elections be cancelled in areas where over voting was recorded in line with the Electoral Act.
“Secondly, the margin of lead by the LP’s candidate which was about 15,000 was bigger than the number of the people that were accredited to vote in Nkanu East. So, even if you add the whole 7,453 accredited votes to the PDP, LP’s total votes will still be higher.
“We are, therefore, worried that INEC is even contemplating short-changing the Labour Party. With the information at our disposal, we are calling on INEC to do the right thing. Labour Party has won virtually all the elections in Enugu State, including seven out of eight House of Representatives and two Senate seats out of the three senatorial positions.
“It will interest you to know that the LP senatorial candidate that was assassinated three days to the election, a replacement was effected and the LP won convincingly. This election in dispute was conducted the same day with the senatorial election which we won. It is, therefore, no doubt that Enugu is a LP state. If they are smart, they would have known that on the same day, state House of Assembly election took place and it is still the same number of people that were accredited for the exercise.
“We are, therefore, calling on INEC, that having meted out injustices to Labour Party in the presidential election and across other states, including Lagos, Edo, Rivers, Imo among others, it will be infra-dig if Enugu governorship is by any means ceded to any other party aside LP which won the election convincingly.”
