By Ayoola Olasupo, Patrick Odey, Bola Bamigbola and Adeyinka Adedipe
The Director-General Obi/Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Akwa Ibom State chapter, Capt. Augustine Okon, on Friday expressed confidence that the mandate given to Peter Obi during the just concluded presidential elections would be recovered through legal means.
Obi while addressing a conference on Thursday indicated his readiness to challenge the result of the election.
Okon said, “The PCC Akwa Ibom State has collated enough evidence to prove that His Excellency Peter Obi won the election in Akwa Ibom State and will liaise with the legal team to ensure that the stolen mandate is recovered.
“You are aware that prior to the election, the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, had promised Nigerians that all unit results will be uploaded to the IReV portal from such units through BVAS. But without any notification or explanation, INEC proceeded to manually collate and announce the so-called election results.”
Meanwhile, the South-West leadership of the Big Tent Campaign Council, an independent campaign group of the Labour Party presidential candidate in the February 25 election on Friday said INEC failed to comply with its own rules in the conduct of the elections.
Addressing newsmen in Osogbo the South-West Coordinator of the group, Mr Lanre Fadahunsi, said there were video proofs of INEC’s non-compliance with the guidelines it set for the conduct of the election.
He said, “As the South-West coordinator of the Big Tent Campaign Council, I find this quite amusing that the electoral process could be so compromised.
“We all must have seen various videos indicative of INEC’s non-compliance with its own rules by the various neglect of the established process of the uploading of results from every stage of the electoral process.”
Meanwhile, the Igbo apex socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has said it stands firm on Obi’s decision to challenge the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner and the president-elect of the February 25 presidential election.
Speaking with one of our correspondents in a telephone interview, Ohanaeze’s spokesperson, Alex Ogbonnia, said the group held strongly that the judiciary would help Peter Obi to reclaim the mandate, noting that the irregularities witnessed during the conduct of the election were unprecedented.
Also, the Edo State chapter of the Labour Party has expressed sadness over the killing of one of its members, Elizabeth Owie, a mother of three, during the February 25 president and National Assembly elections in the state. Also killed was 33-year-old Festus Idahosa, an engineer.
Source: The Punch
