Lagos PDP candidates in the just-concluded National Assembly Election on Thursday called on INEC to audit and review all collated results with Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) in the Lagos West and Lagos Central senatorial districts.

Addressing a news conference in Lagos, the candidates said they did not lose the elections going by the results obtained by their agents from each of the polling units in their districts as contained in INEC Form EC8A.

According to them, INEC must use the window of seven days allowed by law to compare and audit results announced with the one transmitted through BVAS into IReV (result viewing portal)

The candidates included Segun Adewale, the PDP senatorial candidate for Lagos West and his counterpart in Lagos Central, Wale Gomez;  Olumuyiwa Owadara, the PDP candidate in Oshodi-Isolo federal constituency I and his counterpart in Somolu, Oluwaseyi Olowu (Chicago).

Mr Adewale said, “This cheating is just too much. What we experienced at the poll was stealing of people’s mandate brazenly and they are damning the consequences. How can the electoral umpire connived with some politicians to turn my results upside down. I even defeated my rival from APC (Idiat Adebule) in her polling unit in Ojo LGA.”

He added, “I have my results all over, it is disheartening to hear I lost elections when you cooked up figure not minding what happened at the polling units and fact-check by BVAS.”

He said PDP’s field agents had results from all the polling units in Lagos West senatorial district comprising 10 LGAs, but the summation of the results at ward and local government levels were tampered with.

“All we are saying is that let us have a summation of Form EC8A. This is not too much to ask INEC. Over 90 per cent of those results were not signed by our agents because they did not reflect polling units figure scored by each party,” stated Mr Adewale. “Our agents refused to signed because the results that we have with us are different from the results INEC brought there for collation. The results being collated at different level must be the summation of EC8A, EC8B, EC8C and EC8D. Let INEC upload it and sum it.”

He pointed out that “there is no need for rerun, our results show that we won.”

Mr Gomez explained that his LGA agent refused to signed the results “because what he got in his hand is different from what INEC staff were producing for collation” and asked INEC to ensure that the wrongs were corrected with the commission’s seven-day window to review results.

Speaking, Mr Owadara, the chairman of the forum of PDP House of Representatives’ candidates for 2023 general election said the group would not accept the results.

“We will pursue it and we are ready to go to any length to get back our mandate. We won the election in Lagos state. We are not accepting the results,” he said.

Meanwhile, reacting to the allegations of manipulation by PDP, INEC’s resident electoral commissioner Olusegun Agbaje said it was difficult if not impossible for anyone to alter election results.

INEC has come under fire for its failure to upload results to its viewing portal as Nigerians expected that the election results would be uploaded on election day as promised by the INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu. 

(NAN)