The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for ASALGA and AKULGA Federal Constituency in last Saturday General Elections, Hon. Boma Goodhead has condemned the high-scale violence allegedly perpetrated against members of the PDP by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its allied state security agents during the election on Saturday.
Addressing journalists in Buguma, headquarters of ASALGA shortly after the exercise which she regretted, was characterized by violence and late accreditation, the lawmaker said some members of the PDP were beaten up while some were detained unlawfully including the party’s Ward 4 Secretary Mr. Nye Ikiriko who was manhandled by the Army on Friday, a situation which sent fears into the electorate.
“In all of these cases, result sheets were carted away, filled in private places and returned to INEC for declaration”, she said.
Hon. Goodhead further regretted that security agencies exhibited a clear case of compromise and demanded that the Army should release one Mr. Adaye Princewill that was arrested by the army.
Elections in ASALGA were marred by late accreditation of voters in some of the polling units. In Wards 9 unit 12, the card reader had a problem of which held up voting till 11:45am.
Similarly, the electorates at Ward 13 were disfranchised based as a result of non-availability of voting materials at the area.
However, the result presented by the Returning Officer for the Presidential Elections in ASALGA, Dr. Steven Wordu to the State Collation Officer at INEC office in Port Harcourt, was rejected “due to the fact that the number of votes cast exceeded the number of accredited voters”.
It was further alleged that the number of voters allotted to each party by the returning officer did not tally when put into the INEC excel sheet. The LGA returning officer was therefore asked to go back with his results, reconcile the figures and come back so as to defend his results but all to no avail.
It was also said that even parties that never contested the Presidential Elections were allocated figures.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Officer, Mr. Glenn Ucomadu while presenting his report, tendered evidences of result sheets snatching by both the military and thugs at polling units and also at the collation centre in the presence of security agencies.
He presented reports from all presiding officers and ward collation officers that supported the fact that materials were snatched by the military and some APC thugs.
The EO further made it clear that results were not declared by the returning officer at the collation centre in Buguma, and accused the Local Government Area returning officer of disappearing with all result sheets with the protection of the Army.
