On Monday, March 6, the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and their supporters, invaded the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja requesting the cancellation of the 25 February presidential election.
The protest was led by its National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the Director General of his campaign and Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal, the party also submitted a petition to the commission.
Presenting the petition to INEC’s National Commissioner for Voter Education and Information, Festus Okoye, Ayu asked the commission to cancel the election and conduct another one that will be respected by all.
“Cancel the election …and conduct a very credible election that will be respected not only by Nigerians but by the whole international community,” he said.
Okoye, who received the letter on behalf of the INEC Chairman, said the commission will look into the issues raised and deal with them.
As maintained by premium times, Okoye assured that the electoral body will meet to address the issues raised where they need to be addressed.
Bring to mind that INEC had on Wednesday, March 1, declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, winner of the election.
The commission’s Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, who announced the results, said Mr Tinubu polled the majority votes of 8,794,726, while Atiku secured 6,984,520 votes, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) came third with 6,101,533 votes and Rabi’u Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) got 1,496,687 votes.
The PDP and Labour Party (LP) had rejected the results of the election during the collation of results and before Tinubu was announced as the winner.
Both parties have also approached the court to challenge the electoral process and Mr Tinubu’s victory.
They also faulted the electoral commission for not uploading the polling unit results on the INEC result viewing (IReV) portal before the collation of results began.
The parties insisted that it is part of the promises repeatedly made by the commission and that it is backed by some section of the Electoral Act 2022.
