The Labour Party candidate in the February 3 rerun election for Enugu South 1 State Constituency, Bright Ngene, has called for a review of the election alleging irregularities.
He also filed a petition against top INEC officials in the state over their alleged involvement in the process.
This comes as Labour Party and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) supporters, yesterday, protested the delayed release of election results at the Enugu State headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Election (INEC).
However, in a statement, Ngene alleged that the electoral umpire violated the electoral laws and colluded with the opposition to undermine the entire process before, during and after the election.
Ngene said the recruiting adhoc personnel made the electoral process not transparent.
He said the commission abandoned the people that attended three-day INEC adhoc training, and recruited unknown people, adding that the list of successful trainees was deliberately not made public.
He added that those used for election, instead of the trainees, “were actually members of PDP, who were all smuggled at midnight, the eve of the re-run election.”
He alleged that the recruited PDP members were allowed to “ingress the INEC office to influence the corpers (about 10) with the sum of N50,000 each on the condition that they should not disclose that the BVAS has been tampered, and they should not protest the short changing of their position as PO’s by the PDP recruited thugs.”
He further claimed that top INEC officials allowed the PDP members access to the original result sheet and polling unit result which enabled them to write the result before the election.
“The BVAS were tampered and figures uploaded before the election and corpers were told not to talk otherwise they will be traced and killed after the election.”
While expressing dismay Ngene insisted that, “There was no report of any violence and or vandalism of any sort, yet the result sheet and other sensitive materials mysteriously got missing from INEC custody.
“The said result sheet and other sensitive materials were received and acknowledged by the E. O. from the central Bank alongside Party Agents who witnessed and supervised the material on the 1st of February 2024.”
He alleged that “There was no violence or any foreseeing threat yet no election was held, because all the sensitive, and non-sensitive materials have been compromised and tampered by the REC.”
In his submission the former lawmaker called for an investigation of the electoral officers in the state over the outcome of the election.
In a related development, Labour Party and PDP supporters, yesterday, protested the delayed release of election results at the Enugu State office of INEC.
The Labour Party supporters stormed the INEC protesting the delay to announce the result of the re-run election for the Enugu State 1 state constituency.
But, shortly afterwards, PDP supporters, who had earlier accused INEC of being in possession of fake result sheets, also stormed the electoral body’s office.
Earlier at the venue of the election, the Labour Party candidate for the election, Bright Emeka Ngene expressed sadness that the PDP denied the authenticity of the result sheet.
He accused the PDP of trying to scuttle the election despite the fact that INEC came with authentic result sheets.
On his own, the PDP candidate, Sam Ngene, accused INEC of coming to conduct the election with fake result sheets.
Meanwhile, hoodlums disrupted the re-run election in the Enugu South 1 state constituency.
Though no lives were lost in the act, election materials were destroyed and voters were prevented from casting their votes.
