By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Agents of opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party on Monday staged a walk out at the National Collation Centre in Abuja for the just concluded Presidential election in Nigeria.
Senator Dino Melaye, one of the agents of PDP had mobilised the Labour Party agents to leave the hall where the collation exercise is taking place at International Conference Centre Abuja.
The agents questioned the decision of the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to transmit the result of the presidential elections electronically as contained in the constitution.
Melaye, a former member of the Senate was heard telling other agents, “When we resume, before they announce any other state, we will all stand up and insist that they project the results on their portal. If they resume, we will all walk out and that will put the integrity of the whole process to question”.
In an address to reporters, he said, “The electoral Act 2022 states that election results will be transmitted directly to the server. We found out that this has not been done because INEC failed in this regard.
“When I raised this issue today and supported by other party agents, the INEC Chairman vehemently evaded the issue. What section 47(3) emphasis is that where ever the BVAS failed, if they cannot get a replacement, elections should be cancelled in those areas. We have seen from the presentation of results from Ekiti yesterday that some places were cancelled as a result of bypassing the BVAS.
“The only way to detect that BVAS has been bypassed is for us to see the uploaded results. We insisted that the chairman should show us here and now the uploaded results state by state, just like they are projecting the results they are presenting. That is the only way to test the veracity and authenticity of these results.
“If not, we are only here to endorse the fraud that has been done from unit to the ward to the state. We are not here to rubber stamp infractions and the anomalies that have been done.
“We are here to check them, but the INEC Chairman is not giving us the opportunity to question what they are doing, saying all has been done. What that mean is that we are here to rubber stamp. We are going to prove that we are not here to rubber stamp. We have no other country to call our own than this country.
“We are going t do everything humanly possible to make sure that the right thing is done. We have just met now and we are going to make a presentation by the time we resume. If they insist that they are not going to respond to us, then you will see the action we will take.
“But we want to tell you that we will not allow, having suffered pains in this country, having suffered hi hunger, killings, we will not allow a continuation of failure. We will ensure that the right thing is done.
“The INEC Chairman is putting his integrity on test. Nigerians are watching, the world is watching. Even the dead are watching to see what INEC will do. But the battle to make sure that only authentic results will be announced here today is a battle of no retreat, no surrender.”
