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The government party warns of the “inflammatory comments” of the opposition
26 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Labor Party, one of the main formations in Nigeria, has announced that it will appeal to the courts the result of the general elections held on Saturday after alleging numerous irregularities.
The national secretary of the party, Alhaji Umar Faruk Ibrahim, has stressed that the formation had significant support in most of the northern region of the country, but voters have been prevented from participating, who were “violently persecuted” and expelled from schools. electoral. In other cases, ballot papers or directly the ballot boxes with the votes have been destroyed, according to a statement collected by the Nigerian newspaper ‘Vanguard’.
These acts have occurred in states such as Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Kano, Yobe and Edo. At some points, the personnel of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CNEI) did not arrive at the voting centers or the electoral material was missing or they arrived late “to frustrate party supporters” who were “psychologically exhausted from waiting” and they marched
The Labor Party has reported that its auditors were deliberately banned by different outlets across the country, but particularly in regions where they hoped to have significant support. Voters who were supposed to support the Labor Party were also thrown out of polling stations on the grounds that that was not where they should vote.
Umar has assured that the party “would have achieved more than double the votes” without all these irregularities. In any case, he has asked supporters of the party for calm and has called for mobilization.
In response, a spokesman for Nigerian President Muhamadu Buhari, Bashir Ahmad, has mocked Labor’s request. “The Labor Party calls for the cancellation of the presidential elections. Hilarious!” He posted on Twitter in a message accompanied by four smiley faces.
Later, from the ruling party itself, the Congress of All Progressives, they have denounced the “inflammatory comments” of representatives of the Labor Party and the Popular Democratic Party (PDP).
“We are struck by certain inflammatory comments made by opposition party spokespersons, in particular the PDP and PL, about the results of yesterday’s elections, which have not yet been announced,” CTP spokesman Festus Keyamo said in statements collected by the newspaper ‘Vanguard’.
“Some have threatened with fire and brimstone if the version they have concocted of the elections is not announced. They want to be judge, jury and executioner in these elections,” he said.
He has also warned that these parties want to “incite” their supporters “against the country.” “They use some incidents of violence in our strongholds despite the fact that we have tons of videos of electoral irregularities and violence against supporters of other parties, of people forcing women and children to put their mark on ballot papers in favor of the PL,” he added. .
The CNEI has so far published the results of 33,839 of the total 176,846 voting centers installed throughout the country, that is, only 19 percent.
“This delay in the publication of the results affects confidence in the process of transmission of results,” warned the observer NGO Yiaga Africa. “At the moment the 2023 presidential elections are a new missed opportunity,” he added, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
RIVERS STATE
Labor Party Chairman Julius Abure had previously asked the CNEI to annul the elections in the Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo and Rumukoro regions. Abure has expressed his “astonishment” at reports of attacks by “thugs” on several polling stations from which they took electoral material, including results sheets, reports the Nigerian news agency NAN.
In addition, these “thugs” manipulated the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) — used by voters to verify their identity through finger print or facial recognition — and uploaded false results to the CNEI’s central server. . “In these areas the Labor Party was clearly winning and by very wide margins,” he said.
“Nigerians went to vote in these elections with the CNEI’s guarantees that the use of the BVAS was the perfect antidote to bad electoral practices in Nigeria,” added Abure. “It is a simple and plain betrayal of the trust placed by millions of Nigerians in the CNEI,” she stressed.
Abure has ensured that these “thugs” colluded with the military and police personnel deployed in the voting centers and pressured the electoral staff to manipulate the BVAS. “We demand that the CNEI investigate these atrocities against Nigerian voters perpetrated by the political class,” she said.
