Published 27th Feb, 2023

By Sodeeq Atanda

Senator Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his counterpart acting as party agents for the Labour Party have walked out of the national collation centre for the presidential election in Abuja.

The former lawmaker had raised questions on the availability of election results on the online portal created by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Both the PDP and the LP alleged that there was a discrepancy in the result announced for Ekiti State due to over-voting.

The party agents also asked the commission to review the collated results before proceeding, a claim flatly turned down by INEC.

“I agree with your suggestion that the commission has the power to review election results, but that is contingent on one thing: the collation has to be concluded first. After this, we can then look into such request,” Yakubu, the chief electoral officer of the federation, said.

They asked INEC to discontinue the announcement of the results till all results were transmitted to the INEC portal from each state to encourage transparency.

Responding, Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said that the claim was untrue, having verified from the official template of results at the commission’s disposal.

Yakubu also said that the collation would go on because the commission was convinced that the request to discontinue the process was not acceptable.

“I can confirm that there was no over-voting in Ekiti State. What we have is correct and accurate and whatever resultS you have are inconsistent with the official results,” Yakubu said.

“Collation of results have been done at different layers and agents of political parties have agreed to their correctness.”

Following the chairman’s response, the teams representing the LP and the PDP walked out of the venue in protest.

Melaye told newsmen outside the venue of the collation that they had seen that “INEC chairman is determined to continue with the process” despite their observations, saying the agents believed the commission wanted to manipulate the results for APC.

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