The Cross River State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party has rejected the results of the local government election conducted in the state on Saturday and headed to the court to challenge them.
The position of the party was made known in a statement issued by the PDP Chairman in the state, Venatius Ikem, in Calabar on Monday.
Ikem described what transpired to be a well-orchestrated rigging plan, which included the diversion of election materials, late arrival of insufficient ballot papers without standard serial numbers, and result sheets.
He noted that at most of the polling units, the Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission official stamps were not provided for the Presiding Officers to stamp the ballot papers after appending their signatures for authentication as required by law.
He said: “From inception, the processes were skewed to favour the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the composition of the electoral umpire.
“We obviously underrated the charade that the electoral umpire was cooking in the name of the local government election witnessed on Saturday, November 2.
“In Calabar South, Municipality, Obudu, Abi, Obubra in particular, election materials, meant for the entire local governments, were diverted to the houses of APC stalwarts where thumb printings were brazenly carried out.
“For instance, In Obudu no single election material was issued to anyone except the APC that took custody and carted them away to the Military School in Bedia.
“At this location soldiers cordoned off every one except APC members ostensibly on the orders of a serving army General from the area who is an elder brother of the APC candidate.
“Again, in Obanlikwu and Bekwarra local government areas where ballot papers were distributed no single results sheets accompanied them and results were written on ordinary papers.”
The PDP Chairman attributed these “shenanigans” to the poor performance of the All Progressives Congress both at the federal and state levels.
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According to Ikem, this instilled palpable fears amongst members of the ruling party and made them scared of a free and fair contest to avoid embarrassment from the electorate.
He added: “Accordingly, we reject any result emanating from the purported election because, as far as we are concerned, there was nothing like a local government election in Cross River.
“We state boldly that never in the political history of Cross River have the electorate witnessed this kind of monumental electoral fraud perpetrated on Saturday.
“We urge all our members to remain calm and peaceful as the party shall pursue the outcome in a competent court of law.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that the state electoral umpire had absolved itself of any blame on what transpired on the field on Saturday.
The Chairman, Dr. Ekong Boco, had blamed the political parties for the lapses, stating that the commission did all it could to ensure a successful exercise.
NAN also reports that the commission had on Sunday declared APC as the winner of all the available 18 chairmanship seats as well as the 196 councillorship seats across the 18 council areas.
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