PH Mundial – Port Harcourt Online Newspaper News Across The Region
Related Articles
By Lilian Nkem-Worlu
Governorship candidate of the Accord Party in Rivers State, Chief Dumo Lulu-Briggs, has rejected the results of the just concluded governorship election in the state.
He made this known in a message titled ‘Lest They Die in Vain,’ which he delivered at a press conference at the party’s secretariat in Port Harcourt.
Dumo alleged that contrary to assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that after the presidential and National Assembly elections, the electoral umpire “allowed the People’s Democratic Party strong men to hijack the electoral process in most of the 6,886 polling unit and thwarted the electronic transmission of results in real-time.”
He also alleged that “all over the state, PDP members in the company of security men allocated votes to PDP candidates by seizing the BVAS machines and uploading fictitious figures on the IREV.”
Lulu-Briggs claimed that his party’s supporters came out to vote in what they thought would be a free, fair and transparent election but political thugs, gunmen and unscrupulous state security agents unleashed violence and bloodshed on them.
“As it were, the violence of 2015 and 2019 has repeated itself. Again, the blood of our innocent compatriots have been used to water the ambition of desperate Rivers State politicians.
“Days to the governorship and House of Assembly, Accord House of Assembly members were kidnapped/ harassed. Reports were awash with town criers warning voters in several communities to stay at home if they weren’t going to vote for the PDP.
“For instance, in Oyigbo LGA, ward 10, unit 5, the presiding officer, Bitrus Abigail Delyop has signed and sealed the result sheet showing that I won with 67 votes, APC 2 and PDP 4 votes. This result was falsified and new result uploaded on the IREV portal allocating 56 votes to PDP and 26 votes to APC,” he said.
The Accord governorship candidate pointed out that there was no proper governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state as it was marred and disrupted by killings, massive violence, heavy voter suppression, voter intimidation and other forms of irregularities and non-compliance with the electoral law and INEC regulations.
He however called on INEC to cancel the entire election of March 18, 2023 in Rivers State and hold a fresh one as failure to heed to the call will leave his party and him with no choice but to file a petition at the election petition tribunal to challenge the travesty.
