Delta State All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the results last Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections.
The party called for the cancellation of the results, which it said did not reflect the votes of the electorate.
APC’s governorship candidate Olorogun O’tega Emerhor addressed reporters yesterday in Warri on the party’s decision to reject the polls results.
Emerhor, who was in company of his running mate, Chief Thomas Abanum; a member of the party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Frank Kokori and other party leaders, gave details of how the elections were rigged in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The APC candidate described the results as “cooked, fabricated and allocated” to suit only the ruling party.
He alleged that the PDP worked with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and some security aides to public office holders to rig the elections.
According to him, the PDP used a new mode of intimidation and vote-buying among the electorate after voting had begun.
Enerhor said the PDP, in violation of the INEC’s directive that only electronic card readers be used to prevent electoral fraud, ignored the machines in most places.
The APC candidates said this gave room for the inflation and allocation of illegal results.
He said the party would soon decide on its next line of actions after consultations.
Emerhor said: “Recall that at the stakeholders’ meeting organised by INEC days before the elections, I spoke out on the fraud that marred the presidential election, where results were cooked up and written without reference to the electorate. I said INEC returning officers, who connived with the PDP/Labour Party (LP) in their alliance to deliver a whooping 1.4 million votes on March 28, remained in the system.
“I said unless they were disqualified from the April 11 elections, they would repeat the feat again for the PDP. Of course, as nothing was done, the stage was set for the fraud that took place.
“A deliberate and well orchestrated mayhem was unleashed by PDP on voters in most parts of Delta North and Central to disrupt proper voting as much as possible. So, PDP’s strong men and their security attaches, working with thugs recruited for this purpose, were deployed to seize result sheets, cart away materials or disrupt voting generally and particularly in APC strongholds.
“A few local government areas or voting points were spared to serve as points to showcase purported free and fair elections. Even at that, the PDP resorted to vote-buying in such voting points.”
“The violence and commotion stated above was designed; it was a smokescreen for the real fraud of cooking up figures between the PDP and their INEC accomplices. These figures are then allocated whimsically to the three main contending parties.
“While it is true that card readers were used only at voting points reserved to showcase proper elections, generally, the use of card readers was not only ignored but results were fabricated 100 per cent. This happened because the state government’s power machinery was brought to bear to seize INEC’s machinery to deliver a pre-ordered voting pattern.”