The Labour Party has cried out, demanding the cancellation of the presidential and national assembly elections which took place in Rivers State.
The party described the revelations coming from Rivers State following the presidential and national assembly elections which took place on Saturday, February 25, 2023 as a shock.
The LP made this revelation in a statement released by the National Chairman of the party, Barrister Julius Abure.
He said thugs believed to have been hired by the state government stormed various polling units and collation centres, whisked away election materials.
“We took particular note of incidents in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo, Rumukoro and several other areas where Labour Party was clearly leading in virtually all the polling units with very wide margins. Governor Nyesom Wike, faced with the stark reality of defeat even in the polling units in his compound in Worji, where LP scored 323 votes against APC and PDP’s 5 and 2 votes respectively, he used the soldiers and police to intimidate, harass and snatch ballot papers.
“Nigerians went into this election based on the assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC that the deployment of BVAS was a perfect antidote to electoral malpractices in Nigeria, but what transpired across Nigeria, if allowed to stand is purely a betrayal of trust by millions of Nigerians on INEC.
“INEC’s staff were intimidated by these thugs in connivance with the military personnels and police officers who were deployed to protect them, into doing their bidding and were forced to manipulate the BVAS, being afraid of the consequences of their refusal. Some of these manipulations happened way into late in the night. We demand that INEC investigate these atrocities against Nigerian voters by the political class.
“We are therefore asking that INEC should rise to the occasion and cancel all the unverified and manipulated results arising from the presidential and national assembly elections in parts of Rivers state particularly in places like Obio/Akpor, Khana, Eleme, Obigbo and Rumukoro amongst others,” the party stated.