PDP rejects results of local elections in Cross River

The Cross River chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the state’s local elections on Saturday fell short of every standard to be called an election.

The party rejected the results and said it would challenge the outcome in a competent court of law.

Cross River State Independent Electoral Commission on Sunday declared the APC the winner of all 18 chairmanship seats and 196 councillorship seats.

A statement issued by the PDP Chairperson in Cross River, Venatius Ikem, in Calabar on Monday states that the party rejects the election outcome.

Mr 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, official stamps of the election commission were not provided for the Presiding Officers to stamp the ballot papers after appending their signatures for authentication as required by law.

“From inception, the processes were skewed to favour the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from the composition of the electoral umpire.

“We underrated the charade that the electoral umpire was cooking in the name of the local government election witnessed on Saturday, 2 November.

“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 everyone 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,” he stated.

Call for calm

The PDP chairperson attributed these “shenanigans” to the APC’s “poor performance” at the federal and state levels.

According to him, this instilled fear among members of the ruling party and made them scared of a free and fair contest to avoid embarrassment by the electorate.

“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 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,” he declared.

The News Agency of Nigeria recalled that the state election commission had absolved itself of any blame for what transpired on Saturday.

The commission’s chairperson, Ekong Boco, blamed the political parties for the lapses and stated that the commission did all it could to ensure a successful exercise.