From Judex Okoro, Calabar

The Cross River State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected the results of Ogoja/Yala federal constituency bye-election as announced by the Returning Officer, Dr John Edor, alleging that INEC compromised the processes.

The APC’s candidate  for Ogoja/Yala by-election, Chief Jude Ngaji, was declared winner with 22,778 votes while PDP’s candidate, Mr. Mike Usibe polled 20, 590 votes.

Rejecting the outcome of the excercise during a media briefing in Calabar, the state party chairman, Venatius Ikem, called for an investigation into the activities of INEC’s National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, and a top director, who allegedly tempered with the BVAS machines. 

Ikem disclosed that on the day of the election, Saturday, February 26, 2022, some of our vigilant agents in Yala detected a staff of INEC Cross River State who was trying to smuggle in a BVAS machine that was not amongst those accredited for the election.

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He maintained that the said-staff was said to have taken to his heels and disappeared throughout the election.

“We demand that the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Cross River State must produce him because this incident was brought to his attention.

“It is remarkable that in the process of confirming materials prior to the election, 5 BVAS machines were recorded missing, which they later claimed were ‘forgotten’ in the process of loading them from Calabar.

“We demand that INEC produce shoukd provide all BVAS machines used for the elelction to acertain if the accreditation recordes in thw machines correspondea wiht the number of votes declared  by the Retuening Officer.

“We further demand that the INEC National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, who supervised the election allegedly  perpetuated the atrocious  acts from INEC officials.”