Petition: PDP didn’t lose at Lagos West, Central — Candidates tell INEC
Lagos PDP Candidates in the just-concluded National Assembly Election have appealed to INEC to consider their petitions against the collated results in the Lagos West and Lagos Central Senatorial Districts in the state.
Mr Segun Adewale, popularly known as Aeroland and Mr Wale Gomez, PDP’s candidates for Lagos West and Lagos Central Senatorial Districts, respectively, while addressing journalists on Monday in Lagos.
According to them, they didn’t lose, going by the results obtained by their agents from each of the polling units in their district.
Adewale, also a former Lagos State PDP Chairman, alleged that most of the results were altered at various levels of collations.
According to him, he was coasting home the victory in Alimosho, Agege, Ojo, Badagry Local Government Areas before the results were allegedly changed through the back door.
He said that the party had all the results from various polling units as declared by the polling officials and those collated by the party agents.
“We have these results intact. What we discovered was that the results were unnecessarily delayed to give room for manipulation.
“How can we lose an election that we have won convincingly at the polling units?
“I, therefore, appeal to the INEC REC (Resident Electoral Commissioner) to go through our petition. We have sent our petition and he should go through it,” he said.
According to him, all entreaties to collation officers at various levels of collations to fact check the results with BVAS (Bimodal Voter Accreditation System) proved abortive.
Adewale also alleged that political thugs also disrupted the collation at Ojo LGA where he was also coasting home the victory.
“It is sad that BVAS could not save us. I appeal to REC to help us do the right thing. Every result that is contrary to what we have obtained from the polling units is fake,” Adewale said.
Also speaking, Gomez said that it was the right of every Nigerian vote to be counted, alleging compromise by INEC officials.
“In Eti-Osa, we won massively. We want INEC to count real results,” Gomez said.
In his contribution, Dr Abdul-Azeez Adediran, the Lagos PDP Governorship Candidate, urged INEC to recall BVAS used for the election, look at them and and review results from contentious areas.
Adediran, who described the party as law abiding, said that the action or otherwise of INEC would determine the next move of the party pertaining the issues raised.
“We won convincingly, we want INEC to announce these results now,” he said.
INEC had collated results and announced winners in most of the federal constituencies and senatorial districts, which mostly favoured APC and Labour Party candidates.
Reacting earlier in the day to such allegations of manipulation by PDP State Collation Centre agent, retired Capt. Tunji Shelle, INEC REC, Mr Olusegun Agbaje, said that it had become difficult if not impossible for anyone to change election results, nowadays.
“If the election was not free and fair, will all the party agents signed the results at the polling unit, registration level and Local Government level? I believe (PDP) is not being sincere,” he said.
