The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate during Saturday's bye-election in Ebonyi State, Hon Silas Onu has described the exercise as a charade.
Onu, who spoke to journalists on Sunday, said it was unfortunate that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was continuing to take Nigerians for granted.
DAILY POST reports that the bye-election in Ebonyi South was conducted owing to the vacancy created by the resignation of Senator David Umahi, now Minister of Works.
At the end of the election, the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate, Prof Anthony Ani was declared winner.
INEC said he polled 46,270 votes, defeating his closest rival, Ifeanyi Eleje of APGA who garnered 3,513 and Onu of the PDP who garnered 2,783 votes. Mr Linus Okorie of the LP scored 2,710 votes in the election.https://dailypost.ng/2024/02/04/apc-wins-ebonyi-south-senatorial-by-election/
But Onu has rejected the exercise, accusing the INEC of being partisan and favouring the APC.
The PDP candidate, who earlier released an appreciation message to all his supporters, said the next line of action would be decided by the party's national leadership.
On how he feels about the conduct of the election, he said, “It was anything but an election; it's a complete sham; votes were allocated by INEC.
“The only people that scored valid votes were PDP, Labour Party and their candidates; because outside these votes, every other polling unit had overvoting and INEC purportedly cancelled them, only to harvest the accredited voters and donate them to the APC.
“That was how the APC got 46,000 votes, because they got all the accreditation figures for all the polling units that were cancelled, which were about 95 per cent of the total polling units in Ebonyi South.”
When asked about his next move, Onu disclosed that, “like I said in my appreciation letter this morning to our teeming supporters, I wouldn't want to waste my time going to court.
“However, you know the party also has a say in this matter. I have expressed my own interest but I will go to Abuja and have a talk with the National Legal Adviser of our great party.
“If the party feels strongly that we should challenge it, I will have no option than to do that.
“However, personally speaking, I wouldn't want to waste my time with our judiciary, but the party is supreme, if the party feels otherwise, I will have no option than to challenge it in court.”
He gave further knocks on the INEC accusing it of not conducting elections in Nigeria.
“What they do is select candidates; whoever pays them very well, or whoever the government prefers, INEC crowns the person.
“This rigging was orchestrated by INEC; the strategy for the manipulation of the election was designed by the INEC- create confusion at the polling unit, over-vote, we will cancel it so people will be happy, but we will still credit you the votes at the collation.
“People will get confused, they won't know where you got the votes from, because they would have seen us cancelling; we are not also allotting you bogus figures from those polling units; we are just going to harvest actual accreditation and give it all to you; that's all that happened, that was INEC's strategy this time.
“So, INEC doesn't conduct elections; this is just a drama; it is a charade,” he alleged.
