The All Progressives Congress (APC) has called for cancellation of Saturday’s presidential election in two local governments in Anambra State, over alleged breach of Electoral Act.
State agent of the party for the election in the state and Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, who made the call in the early hours of yesterday, during the collation of the presidential results, at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) State headquarters, Awka, said there was total breach of the electoral law in most local governments in the state.
Making particular reference to his own local government, Idemili South, and Idemili North local government, where he said thousands of eligible voters were disenfranchised, Ngige asked INEC to conduct fresh elections in the two council areas.
Speaking to newsmen after making his submission during the collation, he said: “We’ve got to the stage of casting votes, collation, announcing of the votes and the electoral act is specific on the modus operandi, how you can effect that stage of election. There is a total breach in most of the local governments here, I’ve pointed it out, and I’ve said they are illegal actions.
“First, most of the collations after the polling booth were done in the local government headquarters not in the ward collation centres.
“Some of our agents stayed in the ward collation centres waiting for collation to take place, the other parties, PDP in particular, spirited the presiding officers, moved them away from the collation at ward level and went to local government headquarters and locked themselves up with the presiding officers.
“Even when agents had stumbled or heard that collation was going on there and came, they led them out.”
Noting that the party would go to court if their demand was not adequately met, the minister said: “This is a total breach; it is not in the spirit of the Electoral Act, so, it is an illegal act and I‘ve served them notice.
“I’ve given a pre-action notice that we are going to challenge it in court if we don’t get remedy here, because the remedy here is for them to go back now and check all the ward collation and let us have our grievances addressed here.
“You can see even from what they have done in Idemili South ,where we have about 108, 000 voters, they accredited 59, 000 and the voting result showed that they are 21, 000 persons and they admitted that the people were accredited manually, but they couldn’t vote.”