Dino Melaye, the Peoples Democratic Party’s Presidential Election Collation Officer, has issued a strong warning to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Dino Melaye is concerned that the electoral umpire has not been forthright and transparent in collating presidential results from various states of the federation thus far.
So far, the Commission has declared the results from Ekiti, Kwara, and Ondo States, but Dino Melaye has questioned all of the results announced by the States’ collation officers.
Addressing the press after the result from Ondo State was presented to the National Chairman, Dino said Prof Mahmood Yakubu must realise that the Nigerians, the world and even the dead are watching.
The former Kogi State Senator and other agents on ground at the collation centre were going to do everything humanly possible to make sure the right thing is done, adding that if they insist on their call for the results to be displayed accordingly, “you’ll see the action we’ll take.”
“According to the Electoral Act 2022, as amended, there should be a transmission of results from polling units. And INEC Chairman and Festus Okoye have repeatedly told Nigerians that there would be a transmission of results from polling units and directly to the server and we found out that this has not been done and when I raised this issue today supported by other party agents, the national chairman of INEC vehemently invaded that because what section 47 (3) emphasized is that where ever the card reader or BVAS fail and cannot get a replacement, elections should be cancelled in those places.
”And we have seen from the presentation of the result from Ekiti yesterday that elections were cancelled as a result of bypassing BVAS.
“So the only way to detect that BVAS has been bypassed is for us to see the uploaded results and we insisted that the Chairman should show us here and now the uploaded results state by state. That is the only way to check the authenticity and veracity of the results if not we’re only here to endorse the fraud they’ve already done from the unit to the ward to the states.
“We are not here to endorse and rubber stamp infractions anomalies that have been done. We are here to check them but the national chairman is denying us the opportunity to question what they have been doing.
“He is saying that all has been done, meaning that we’re just here to rubberstamp and we’re going to prove we’re not here to rubberstamp. We’re going to do everything humanly possible to make sure the right thing is done.
“We are going to make a presentation by the time we resume and if they insist they are not going to respond to us you’ll see the action we’ll take. Having suffered pains in this country, having suffered hunger, killing, and kidnapping, we’ll not allow a continuation of failure. We’ll make sure the right thing is done and the national chairman is putting his integrity to the test.
“Nigerians are watching, the world is watching, even the dead are watching to see what INEC would do. Buy the battle to make sure that only authentic results are announced here today is a battle of retreat, no surrender .”
