Labour Party and its candidate Edeoga are challenging the declaration of Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the elected governor of the state.
Leaders of 14 political parties in Enugu State stormed the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to stop the Labour Party and its governorship candidate, Chijioke Edeoga from inspecting the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used in the conduct of the March 18, 2023 election.
The inspection was approved by the election petition tribunal.
Labour Party and its candidate Edeoga are challenging the declaration of Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the elected governor of the state.
Recently, the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Enugu State directed the electoral umpire, INEC to allow Edeoga and his party to inspect the BVAS machines used in the election.
Edeoga had in his petition before the Tribunal argued the election results of Nkanu East Local Government Area, where Peter Mbah of the PDP hails from, do not reflect the actual number of votes cast.
SaharaReporters had reported that during the election, INEC returning officers from the local government said the PDP had over 30,000 votes. INEC after a petition by the Labour Party and a series of protests reduced the figure to 16,000 votes.
It later declared Mbah as the winner of the election with a margin of a little over 3,000 votes.
However, despite the order of the Tribunal granting LP and its candidate permission to inspect the BVAS machines used in the election, the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Chukwuemeka Chukwu, reportedly refused to grant them access to the machines.
SaharaReporters earlier reported that Edeoga on Monday following the REC's refusal to honour the Tribunal's order petitioned the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu over the issue.
The BIVAS machines Edeoga wants his team of forensic experts to inspect are for eight polling units in Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area in the Enugu North Senatorial Zone, the entire Owo Registration Area, and four polling units in Ugbawka Registration Area in Nkanu East LGA, among others.
However, on Wednesday, the Labour Party went with their forensic experts to the INEC office in Enugu but met a brick wall from officials of 14 political parties that allegedly worked for the PDP during the election.
They insisted that the experts would not be allowed to inspect the BVAS machines.
The parties alleged that contrary to the claims made by the Labour Party and its governorship candidate at the Tribunal, their plan was to tamper with the machines.
They accused LP of displaying “rascally behaviours,” warning that nobody should “set the state on fire”.
Addressing journalists at INEC’s state headquarters, one of the 14 party chairmen present and a governorship candidate in the March 18 election, Dr. Afam Ani of the All Peoples Party (APP) said: “We were invited by INEC for BVAS inspection because a court gave an order that the LP should come and inspect the BVAS today.
“But we came here yesterday, but the LP insisted it was not going to hold and it was shifted to today.
“INEC complied with the court order by bringing out the BVAS. The directive said that LP should inspect the BVAS. But they came and insisted they must tamper with the BVAS. But inspection is not tampering with the BVAS.
“The Electoral Law says the BVAS must not be tampered with. INEC is the only body constitutionally empowered to deal with the BVAS. So, we said it would not happen.
“The LP has been displaying numerous rascally behaviours in Enugu State, and we have also witnessed it today. It was too awful. But we, the political parties are here to state that INEC played its part, according to what the court expected it to do.
“We played our part too because we were here to observe what was going to happen. And we observed that the thing was done according to the directive of the court.
“We also want to state that nobody should set Enugu State on fire. Enugu State is our home. The election has been conducted and the results declared. Aggrieved parties are seeking redress in court. We are now into governance and the state does not need all these distractions."
Also speaking, the Enugu State Chairman and governorship candidate of the Allied Peoples Movement, Dr. Ken Ikeh, expressed disappointment at what he described as LP’s offensive conduct.
“I was disappointed at the attitude exhibited by the LP. They brought a handwritten list of other materials they were now requesting from INEC, different from what is recorded in the court order. But there was no objection.
“In the process, we agreed that those materials should be sorted out per quarter because they can’t all be brought out at the same time. The first set of BVAS brought out was when the argument started. INEC then called all the parties to decide on what should be done because it is a neutral body.
“But LP, which is just one out of the 14 political parties present, was insisting that their wish must be done and their wish was that they can handle the material whichever way they wanted, but which we all objected to.”
On his part, the Deputy Chairman of the PDP in Enugu State, Chief Innocent Ezeoha, accused the LP of mobilising its members to intimidate INEC and create crisis and confusion.
“There were about 14 other political parties present, all chairmen, not even representatives. So, we insisted that BVAS should be inspected, not be opened or tampered with, as LP wanted.
“To our utmost surprise again, LPs that were not invited by INEC all surged into this place and they were demanding that BVAS should be opened and tampered with. That is why we objected to it. BVAS should be inspected, not tampered with," he said.
Addressing journalists, the spokesperson for Labour Party, Mr George Ugwu condemned the ‘flagrant disobedience’ to a valid court order by INEC, an agency of government created by law.
Ugwu said: "We are here at the INEC office in Enugu since morning to carry out the order of the Tribunal that the Labour Party and its candidate Chijioke Edeoga should inspect materials particularly the BVAS machines used in the conduct of the March 18 governorship election in the state.
"We have been here since this morning to get INEC to comply with this order. The INEC instead of carrying out the court order which was explicit that the Labour Party should be allowed to inspect the materials in their presence went and invited all other political parties in Enugu State.
"We have never seen anything like this before that a court order is being flouted by a responsible agency of the federal government; INEC is not above the law. INEC has refused vehemently that Labour Party will not inspect these materials by playing all sorts of games with us by insisting that PDP must agree with the way they want to do it.
"INEC is the one that has the BVAS, they have their experts here present but they are insisting that we must go and get the consensus of PDP. So it is very clear that INEC has not obeyed the law, they have not carried out the law.
"The police were here to implement this but INEC kept insisting on informing even before the police that we must go and get the consensus of PDP. The court order is very clear, there is nowhere the court order says it has to be inspected in the presence of PDP or other parties."