The candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the just-concluded National Assembly Election on Thursday called on INEC to audit and review all collated results with Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the Lagos West and Lagos Central Senatorial Districts.
Addressing a news conference in Lagos, the candidates jointly pointed out that they didn’t lose the elections going by the results obtained by their agents from each of the polling units in their districts as contained in INEC Form EC8A used to record votes.
According to them, INEC must use the window of seven days allowed by law to compare and audit results announced with the one transmitted through BVAS into INEC IReV (result viewing portal).
Speaking, Otunba Segun Adewale, the PDP Senatorial candidate for Lagos West, said that he still marveled at where INEC got the figure collated to return the winner in the poll, saying the collated results did not correspond with what PDP agents had in Form EC8A used to record votes of each political party.
“This cheating is just too much. What we experienced at the poll was stealing people’s mandate brazenly and they are damning the consequences.
“How can the electoral umpire connive with some politicians to turn my results upside down? I even defeat my rival from APC (Dr. Idiat Adebule) in her polling unit in Ojo LGA.
“I have my results all over, it is disheartening to hear I lost elections when you cooked up figures not minding what happened at the polling units and fact-check by BVAS,” Adewale said.
He said that PDP’s field agents had results from all the polling units in Lagos West Senatorial District comprising 10 LGAs, but the summation of those results at Ward and local government levels was tampered with.
“All we are saying is that let us have a summation of Form EC8A. This is not too much to ask INEC.
“Over 90 percent of those results were not signed by our agents because they did not reflect polling units figure scored by each party.
“Our agents refused to sign because the results that we have with us are different from the results INEC brought there for collation.
“The results being collated at different levels must be the summation of EC8A, EC8B, EC8C, and EC8D. Let INEC upload it and sum it up.
“There is no need for a rerun, our results show that we won. Form EC8A shows that we won. This Form is our only saving grace but INEC refuses to upload this,” he added.
Adewale decried that INEC had declared some people winners and losers even when it was still battling with uploading Form EC8A days after elections took place.
He alleged that through the back door during collation, the votes accrued to him were deliberately reduced like in Amuwo-Odofin, Ajeromi Ifelodun, Oshodi-Isolo, Agege, Ojo, and other LGAs.
“Right now, what we have seen on our own Form EC8A is totally different from about 30 percent of results INEC uploaded thus far on the INEC IREV portal for results viewing,” he added.
Adewale said that if nothing was done to the petition asking INEC to review the election results, the group would have no option other than to go the court to get back their allegedly stolen mandate.
According to him, all entreaties to collation officers at various levels of collations to fact-check the results with BVAS (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System) proved abortive.
Also speaking, Prince Wale Gomez explained that his LGA agent refused to sign the results, “because what he got in his hand is different from what INEC staff were producing for collation.”
Gomez called on INEC to ensure that the wrongs and injustices were corrected with the commission’s seven days window to review results.
Speaking, Owadara, the Chairman, of the Forum of PDP House of Representatives Candidates for the 2023 General Election said that the group was not going to accept the results and would never do.
“We will pursue it and we are ready to go to any length to get back our mandate. We won the election in Lagos State. We are not accepting the results,” he said.
Meanwhile, reacting to the allegations of manipulation by PDP, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, said that it had become difficult if not impossible for anyone to change election results, nowadays.
