The candidates of the Labour Party and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Athan Achonu and Senator Samuel Anyanwu respectively in the Imo State governorship election have unanimously called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to review the results of the Saturday's election or cancel the entire election.
They made the demand in joint press conference in Owerri, the Imo State capital, describing the election as an “open rape.”
The governorship candidates, who said they had expected the INEC to use the election to redeem itself from the shenanigans of the February 25 presidential election and March 18 governorship election, wondered how Nigerian people could trust the commission with its mantra of conducting a free, fair and credible election in Nigeria again.
Achonu, who said INEC announced results of areas without any form of accreditation whatsoever, added that "where there was accreditation, results were already preloaded by 10 am in the morning even when voting was still ongoing."
He noted that it was because of the infractions that the chairman of Labour Party called on INEC to check their backend, get the actual result so that the collation would stop, but the party regretted that the electoral umpire "didn't listen because they had already planned this."
According to him, from the information available, it was even the Electoral Officers (EOs) who were sharing the money from government to RAs and the collation officers. "They have already given them pre-written results. So the party completely refused, we have now written to the INEC chairman for total review of that election so that whoever that is the victor be announced or outright cancellation of the election."
Corroborating the position of the Labour Party candidate, PDP candidate, Senator Samuel Anyanwu said he felt ashamed with what INEC did to Imo State people.
According to him, "INEC promised a free, fair and credible election. We thought INEC is going to correct what they did on February 25 and March 18. It is very shocking with the fact that the REC in Imo State by 2pm announced to the whole world that entire voters on that Saturday's election is not up to four percent and we were very surprised that results were collected without accreditation.
"I don't want to talk about violence, the place like Orsu you heard the Attorney General of the state who happens to come from Orsu saying that on the day of the election despite insecurity in Orsu, 80 vehicles of people from Orsu were moved from Owerri to Orsu to cast their votes. I wonder how that could be when on election day, there was supposed to be no movement and everybody was confined, but here somebody is telling us that 80 vehicles moved people from Orsu to Orsu local government. And when you look at all the figures they are moving around you will see that in a school or church, they used armoured tanks headed by security apparatus to thumbprint ballot papers.
"I believe that the INEC chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu, who promised that the off-season election will be free, fair and credible but this is a charade as long as I am concerned; there's no election. And we wrote petitions before election started that there must be a review of these results having come out with a lot of facts yet they ignored that at the collation center in the watching eyes of the security operatives.
"A chairman of party who is a state agent of a party was molested and assaulted, bundled out of the place and nobody raised any issue. Look at some of the policemen who were caught on video carrying ballot papers; the evidences are there. My driver and policemen were shot and wounded.
"It is open rape, so we call on INEC chairman to please review this we have time, he has seven days to review this or he cancel this election," he stated.