By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Reactions have continued to trail the outcome of the Feb. 25 National Assembly and Presidential polls in Nigeria in which the electoral umpire declared Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), winner.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pronounced Tinubu winner of the election after he was said to have polled 8.8 million votes, while main opposition candidates Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 6.9 million votes. Candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi came third with 6.1 million votes.
INEC had before the election promised to upload the results real-time on its result viewing portal, the iRev, a promise it failed to fulfil as it resorted to manual collation, a development that led opposition figures to stage a walk out from the national collation centre in Abuja.
Reacting to the development, the governorship candidate of Labour Party in Lagos in the upcoming March 11 election, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivor said the officials of the electoral umpire in Lagos acted like a branch of the governing APC, accusing the commission of thwarting hopes for credible polls at the presidential election.
“I don’t have confidence in INEC, I’m not confident in any of their pronouncements, we will prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Either way, we’ll not be caught off guard again.
“What happened on Saturday (Feb. 25) was a sham and a disgrace to this nation. I voted and when it was time to transmit electronically, you said the portal is not open,” he said.
He alleged that the mutilation of election results by INEC officials are clear signs of rigging in favour of APC, the government in power.
“The fact is that INEC in Lagos State acted like they were a branch of APC, and this happened all across Lagos State.
“This happened because we believed that there was going to be electronic transmission of votes, we thought that our electoral system had deepened”.
‘Labour Party Won’
The party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi had consistently maintained that he won the presidential election, accusing INEC of manipulating the results to give APC’s Tinubu victory, a position Rhodes-Vivor maintains.
He said the results at the party’s possession which he claims is the right one indicates that Labour Party came victorious at the poll with about 900,000 votes.
Labour Party defeated APC candidate in Lagos, his state and stronghold, a milestone analysts believe could be repeated during the Saturday’s governorship polls. If this happens, it will be the first time since 1999 that Lagos will be controlled by the opposition.
The three front runners at the poll won 12 states each, leaving the New Nigerian People’s Party’s Musa Kwankwaso with just Kano State.
“We won, no matter how they try to cut out and tipex our votes, we still emerged victorious, we made history and we did this across tribal lines”, he stated.
