The All Progressive Congress, APC, has rejected the outcome of the Bayelsa governorship, accusing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC of colluding with the ruling party in the state to rob their party.
Dennis Otiotio, the state chairman of the APC in Bayelsa state said the wish of the people was thwarted by the combined efforts of the security agents, INEC and the PDP.
“The declaration does not reflect the will of the people. The People overwhelmingly voted for APC but somehow, the INEC as an institution collaborated with the security agencies and the PDP to scuttle the will of the people.”
Appearing on Arise Tv on Monday night, Mr. Otiotio accused the electoral body of deliberately cancelling the legitimate votes of the APC to be able to declare the PDP as the winner of the election.
He also alleged that INEC deliberately moved the collation of the results in the areas his party won to the capital city, Yenegoa where the infractions were committed without hinderance.
“Areas like Brass, Nembe and Southern Ijaw where APC is winning overwhelmingly, were moved to the capital city while the areas (Sagbama, Ekeremo, Ogbia and Kolukuma) PDP where winning where collated in their respective local government headquarters.
“At the INEC headquarters, the returning officer unilaterally cancelled results in wards 11, 12 and 13 where APC scored a cumulative over 24,000 votes against the 174 votes they were allocated.
“In Southern Ijaw, they decided systematically to begin to cancel votes scored by APC. they cancelled over 60,000 votes that we scored.”
He also accused INEC of declaring Duoye Diri winner in contravention to the electoral act and called on the commission’s Chairman to exercise his power as enshrined in the electoral act and review the outcome of the election.
“We have genuine claims which we have written to INEC and we’re hoping they will look at it and act on the merit according to the new electoral act.”
Accusing INEC of bias, he accused security agents of intimidating their members, stressing that “the duplicate copies of the results we have show that we won the election but INEC stole it from us by deliberately conniving to cancelling our votes.”
