The Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to announce measures immediately to remedy some of the shortcomings and errors identified in the field during the conduct of the presidential election.
Director-General of the campaign council, Akin Osuntokun, made the demand during a briefing on Saturday in Abuja.
Osuntokun listed some of the shortcomings to include the omission of Labour Party logos from the ballot papers and the omission of validly registered Labour Party candidates, in many states, especially in Lagos, Ondo, Enugu, Bayelsa, among other locations across the country.
Others are: verified reports of serious and widespread violence from organised thuggery and intimidation at many locations across the country, particularly in Lagos and Rivers State, unleashed on polling stations across the country, including the snatching of BVAS machines, snatching of ballot boxes, destruction of voting materials, and the infliction of serious injuries, on voters and officials.
It also listed non-arrival of election materials and officials, late arrival of election materials, and incomplete supply of election materials in locations around the country, especially in Labour Party strongholds.
It also identified difficulty of voters in locating polling units, with voters moving from polling station to polling station, and losing active polling time in the process and the absence of names on INEC register, and non-recognition of PVCs by BVAS machine.
He said: “While we remain confident of the overwhelming prevalence of our supporters, we hereby with the highest level of seriousness, and alarm, call upon the INEC Chairman Prof Mahmood Yakubu and the Commission, as a whole, to announce measures, immediately, to remedy these excessive anomalies, correct these errors in the field, and restore fast waning credibility to this ongoing process.
“Nobody must be disenfranchised, under any circumstances, in this election.
“We also call on the Inspector General of Police, the Military Chiefs of Staff, and the Director of the State Security Services, to put into action, the heavy deployments, which they had assured the country were already and effectively in place for this election.
“It will not only be totally unacceptable, but a perfidy and global disappointment, if these elections do not conclude on free, fair and acceptable terms, or if violence is triggered from its mismanagement, or escalated from the organised actions of thuggery and violence.”