Bende women and youths, in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State Saturday called for the outright cancellation of the polls, particularly the Bende federal constituency National Assembly seat.
Carrying placards with various inscriptions claiming that the election was won by the Labour Party candidate, Chief Frank Chinasa.
Blocking the Uzuakoli – Akara Road and chanting anti-INEC songs, they 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, allocated to him.
At the election, Ben Kalu of the All Progressive Congress, APC, was announced the winner of the Bende federal constituency poll by INEC, after polling 10,020 votes, Chinasa 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.
Their spokesperson, Mrs. Chinechetam Mbah, said 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 alleged 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 machines were 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.
