The dust over the credibility of the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections is yet to settle as protest, Saturday, erupted in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State.

The protesters mainly women and youths called for outright cancellation of the polls, particularly the Bende federal constituency contest which they claimed was won by the Labour Party candidate, Chief Frank Chinasa.

They blocked the busy Uzuakoli/ Akara Road chanting anti-INEC songs and carrying placards with various inscriptions such as:” We can’t be disenfranchised, our votes matter”; “We need another election that will be free and fair”; ” INEC refused to upload our results”, etc

They also claimed that the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, received the bulk of the votes from voters in Bende, but expressed shock at the number of votes which the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said he got.

Meanwhile, Ben Kalu of the All Progressive Congress, APC, was announced as the winner of the Bende federal constituency poll by INEC, after polling 10,020 votes.

Chinasa, according to INEC, scored 6, 818 votes to come second, while Nnenna Ukaeje of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, came third with 3,930 votes.

But the protesters alleged that the result announced by INEC was doctored and did not reflect the will of the people.

The spokesperson of the protesters, Mrs Chinechetam Mbah, claimed that the failure of INEC to transmit the results of the election from the various polling units contrary to the commission’s earlier promise was a deliberate ploy to manipulate the outcome of the elections.

She also said that INEC deliberately delayed the arrival of voting materials in most polling units in the stronghold of the Labour party to disenfranchise its supporters.

“The whole electoral process was faulty; Materials couldn’t get to all the polling units on time; and some of the BVAS was faulty and could not provide optimal performances”, she lamented.

“Results were not uploaded immediately after the votes were counted. They claimed there were network issues and they left with both the results and duplicates and uploaded results we suspect to be fake after 24 hours.

“INEC did not provide logistics and Transportation for all the polling units and so some polling units in different wards were disenfranchised”, she added.

Another protester, Mrs Grace Nnamdi from Uzuakoli Ward A, alleged that INEC took results with BVAS away without announcing winners at the polling units.

“There was no ward collation of results. There was over-voting in a lot of areas”, she alleged.

Similarly, Nkeiruka Obilor, and Nneoma Jonas, from Lodu Ward 005, said they voted for Labour Party candidates but INEC subverted the will of the people by awarding victory to other candidates.

They claimed that the collation of results was done manually and without the agents of other parties.

Adding his voice, Mr Chibuisi Ukaegbu said INEC had dampened their morale from participating in future elections.

” They changed our results. It’s better they did not hold any election at all, and in future they should not bother asking us to vote because it’s just a waste of time. Votes don’t yet count in Nigeria”.

Another protester, Collins Okezie lamented that despite their insistence that INEC officials should upload their results immediately, the commission refused, “only to come up with strange results we don’t know where they cooked”.

He demanded a fresh election to restore public confidence in INEC and Nigeria’s electoral process.

“A flawed system will generate distrust and increase the propensity of violence in an otherwise peaceful constituency, which will produce a ripple effect of further economic recession”, he added. (Saturday Vanguard)

•Protesting women in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State against the results of the Election conducted by INEC on February 25^th, 2023

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