The People’s Democratic Party, (PDP), has lamented over the delay in declaring Lt. Col. Agbu Kefas of the PDP as winner of the governorship election in Taraba State by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The state Publicity Secretary of the party, Andeta’rang Iramae, alongside other PDP supporters besieged the INEC office on Monday where they lamented that the
INEC State Collation/Returning Officer and Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) have no reason to delay the announcement of Lt. Col. Agbu Kefas as the winner of the governorship election having won with landslide, scoring a total of 255,317 votes.
According to Irammae, any attempt to tamper with the result will be resisted.
He said: “We are here to defend our votes, so INEC should not delay declaring result because the PDP candidate, Lt. Col. Agbu Kefas won the election”.
He revealed how the officials treated one particular local government area unfairly while showing favour to others.
“By the Electoral Law, the results are declared at ward level, from ward level to local government level.
“Let me give you an instance, Wukari local government area had election. Results were declared at ward level and collated at local government level. The results came yesterday and were submitted. He was told to stay aside. He stood aside. After him, Gassol came, they collected the result. Jalingo came after him, they collected his result. Ibi came after him, they collected is result.
“He came in the morning and the Returning Officer told him to step aside. What for? Because an agent of the party brought up issues that were inconsequential. He listened to him and tried to breach the process. You can imagine that!
“The Returning Officer of Wukari said, ‘I was here since yesterday, I came before Gassol. People raised issues about Gassol’s result, you went ahead and collected the result. I would not step aside’. You see it is ridiculous. As a party we are not comfortable,” Irammae added.
The PDP supporters added that the INEC state Returning Officer should announce the results as collated and any party not satisfied with it should go to the Election Petition Tribunal and challenge the result as the INEC National Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood did during the collation of Presidential Election on February 25.
The PDP supporters also accused the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Umar Muktar Gajiram and the INEC State Collation/Returning Officer, Prof. Muhammed Ahmad Abdulaziz for taking sides with Prof. Sani Yahaya of the NNPP and interference with the final announcement of the Taraba State governorship result won by Col. Agbu Kefas of the PDP.
He warned that any attempt to disrupt the announcement of the result may lead to anarchy.
