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Agents from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and two other parties walked out of the National Collation Centre (NCC) in Abuja over alleged problems with the presidential election results and issues with the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV).
The walkout was led by PDP agent Dino Melaye, former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives Emeka Ihedioha, and other party representatives.
Melaye told journalists that the agents had agreed that the election process should be canceled. He accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of rigging the election by stopping results from being properly uploaded and presenting the process as legitimate when, in his view, it was a fraud.
He also claimed there were no results on the server and said some areas did not even hold elections, yet results were being fabricated. Melaye said INEC’s refusal to show the uploaded results was evidence of manipulation.
He added that he was not trying to disrupt the process but was fighting for a fair and transparent election. “I am not Orubebe. I want the process to be transparent,” he said.
Ihedioha expressed worry about the election’s integrity, saying that Nigerians wanted an electronic voting system, which had been used successfully in previous elections. However, he said INEC had failed to take responsibility for the problems on election day.
Umar Farooq Ibrahim, the national secretary of the Labour Party, said INEC ignored their concerns and was trying to force results on them without addressing issues with the BVAS machines and IReV glitches.
Chinemelo Ubah, the agent for the Action Peoples Party (APP), said they wanted to give INEC a chance to fix things but could not support what they considered an illegitimate election.
In response, APC’s presidential agent Babatunde Ogala said any party unhappy with the results should go to court.
INEC Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu responded, saying Melaye had quoted the wrong figures but promised the commission would review the concerns raised by the party agents.
