Labour Party Chairman, Governorship Aspirant, Raise Alarm Over INEC’s Delayed Transmission of Results

The Labour Party has raised alarm over the delay of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload the result of the presidential election collated in different polling units in Lagos to the central server.

The National Chairman of the party, Julius Abure, in a statement on Saturday night, said many results have not been remitted to INEC’s central server in many places where the Labour Party has won.

He said that INEC officials, in connivance with the security agencies, are claiming that the BVAS have suddenly developed a fault and, therefore cannot function.

The National Chairman said this amid reports of widespread voter intimidation and violence reportedly meted against Labour Party by thugs sponsored by the ruling All Progressive Congress in some states.

Abure said that according to information from the Labour Party’s field men, in places like Agege, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Surulere, and Ibeju Lekki, amongst others where results shows that Labour Party won convincingly, the INEC officials claim that the BVAS suddenly developed fault.

He added that the BVAS works fine for House of Reps and senatorial results, but becomes faulty only when it concerns uploading results of the presidential election.

“Information reaching me has it that in Lagos, they have refused to upload the results for the presidential election, they have uploaded that of the Senate and House of Representatives but for the presidential, they have refused. And they are using the police to drive our agents and supporters out of the place. And they said that they have firm instructions from INEC headquarters not to upload,” he said.

“For example, in Kosofe, they put the collation centre in a Local Government Area Headquarters. The place is surrounded by the APC and people are afraid of their life. They are not uploading, they said that they have been giving instruction to insist that the BVAS is faulty,” he said.

“And most of the places we won, but they have refused to upload,” he added.

Abure further alleged that security agents are colluding with the APC officials to manipulate the results of the election.

“As I speak, APC officials are in Yaba office of INEC negotiating with the officials. What I have said now is happening in Agege, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Surulere, we have this situation all over.

“In Ibeju Lekki, our local government chairman who attempted to stop them was arrested by the police,” he said.

There are reports that Labour Party voters in Rivers State are also facing the same situation, with both state and non-state actors forcing INEC officials to change the results of votes in favor of the APC.

Abure said that a similar situation is playing out across the collation centers in Delta State, calling on INEC to ensure that only genuine and verifiable results generated from the various polling units should be uploaded.

He also called on the police to help this democracy to work and should resist the lure by the politicians to mar the gains of democracy by refusing to be used to deny Nigerians their choice of leaders.

Also, the Labour Party’s governorship candidate in Lagos state, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, “the massive violence” unleashed on the party’s supporters in many parts of Lagos State.

Pointing at Ikate, Surulere, Sangotedo, Aguda, Oshodi and other places where the party supporters were attacked and voting was disrupted, Gbadebo alleged that the ruling party has resorted to violence because the Labour Party is winning, especially in its strongholds.

“We are disturbed by the reporting we are getting about the attacks on our supporters in Ikate, Sangotedo, Aguda, Oshodi, Osolo among others. This is sad for democracy. Ballot boxes were snatched, voters threatened and beaten. We saw the video where a thug was asking those not voting for APC in Surulere to leave the queue if they don’t want to be beaten,” he said, urging INEC to upload results on its portal to eliminate chances of rigging.

INEC has begun transmitting results to its portal.