The Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party PDP who are two of Nigeria’s major opposition parties in the 2023 general elections, have rejected the ongoing collation and announcement of the presidential election results.
Dino Melaye and former Imo state Governor, Emeka Ihedioha who are agents of the PDP had accused INEC of violating the Electoral Act by going ahead with the result collation and announcement of results despite not uploading the results on the INEC Results Viewing Portal iREV portal.
Melaye fiercely insisted that the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu must not accept the results of Ekit state, alleging that there were incidents of over voting and electoral irregularities.
The former lawmaker demanded that the presentation of results by state collation officers for the presidential election (SCOPs) did not in any way translate to the declaration of results.
The aggrieved agents all walked out of the venue in protest against the collation exercise.
Agents of some other parties, including those of the Social Democratic Party SDP, Labour Party LP and Action Democratic Party ADP had expressed similar views.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu rejected the demand of the agents and said the collation process would continue inspite of the protest.
The INEC Chairman denied discrepancies in the figures of the result spreadsheet, adding that the votes scored by each political party had been provided.
He however advised that if any political party believed the figures were inconsistent, it should forward the information to the commission to reinforce fact.
He assured all political parties to forward evidences of inconsistencies and irregularities at any level of the process in their custody and it will be reviewed as provided by law.
Yakubu said there would be no review until the process was completed, a development that made Melaye, Ihedioha others to walk out of the centre.
The chief returning officer however continued with the collation exercise despite the disruption.
