Presidential Election: Dino Melaye Kicks, Alleges Fraud in INEC Result Presentation
The presidential election collation agent of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dino Melaye has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to halt the collation of Presidential Election Results presentation.
Dino, who severally raised objections to how the electoral umpire is carrying out its proceedings, emphasized that INEC is not being transparent with the collation of the presidential results from various states of the federation.
Recall that the Commission has so far announced the results from Ekiti, Kwara and Ondo and Osun States and APC has won three of the four announced states while PDP won one.
Melaye, however, queried the authenticity of the results announced in the three states, except the State his Party won—Osun.
Addressing the press after the result from Ondo State was presented to the National Chairman, Melaye said Prof. Mahmood Yakubu must realize that Nigerians, the world and even the dead are watching.
The former Kogi State Senator announced that he and other agents on ground at the collation centre were going to do everything humanly possible to ensure the right thing is done, adding that if INEC does not heed to their call for the results to be displayed accordingly, they will take drastic action.
According to him, “The Electoral Act 2022 as amended says that there should be transmission of results from polling units and INEC Chairman and Festus Okoye have repeatedly told Nigerians that there would transmission of results from polling units and directly to the server and we found out that this has not been done and when I raised this issue today supported by other party agents the National Chairman of INEC vehemently evaded that
“What section 47 (3) emphasized is that wherever the card reader or BVAS fail and cannot get a replacement, elections should be canceled in those places. And we have seen from the presentation of the result from Ekiti yesterday that elections were canceled as a result of the BVAS bypass.
“So the only way to detect that BVAS has been bypassed is for us to see the uploaded results. We insisted that the Chairman should show us here and now the uploaded results State by State. That is the only way to check the authenticity and veracity of the results, if not we are only here to endorse the fraud they have already done from the Polling Unit to the Ward and to the States.
“We are not here to endorse and rubber stamp infractions and anomalies that have been done. We are here to check them but the National Chairman is denying us the opportunity to question what they have been doing.
“He is saying that all has been done, meaning that we are just here to rubber stamp and we are going to prove we are not here to rubber stamp. We are going to do everything humanly possible to make sure the right thing is done.
“We are going to make a presentation by the time we resume and if they insist they are not going to respond to us you will see the action we will take. Having suffered pains in this country, having suffered hunger, killing, kidnapping, we will not allow a continuation of failure. We will make sure the right thing is done and the National Chairman is putting his integrity to the test.
“Nigerians are watching, the world is watching, even the dead are watching to see what INEC would do. But the battle to make sure that only authentic results are announced here today is a battle of no retreat, no surrender”.
