PDP warns INEC against cancelling declared results in Bauchi

The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has cautioned the leadership of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu against alleged attempts by his commission to tamper with and further cancel already tallied and declared results in 14 more councils in the Bauchi State governorship election.

The PDP, at a press conference addressed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, yesterday, warned that with the charged atmosphere in the state and the level of awareness attained by the people, any attempt by anybody to touch the already announced results would attract serious consequences to the conspirators.

“Our party has information of plots by certain known top ranking officials of INEC to widen the scope of result cancellation beyond Tafawa Balewa to 14 more councils and hike the number of cancelled votes from 70,000 to 184, 555.

“INEC has been instructed to cancel already declared results in 230 polling units in 15 councils in the state, cause confusion and pave the way for the ruling party to manipulate the March 23 supplementary elections.

“Seeing that our party and our candidate, Senator Bala Mohammed, are inevitably coasting to victory, being that Tafawa Balewa is home to the PDP, the All Progressives Congress (APC) is instructing INEC to cancel elections in more councils where it plans to manipulate the processes and allocate fictitious results for the APC at the March 23 polls.”

The opposition party said it was in possession of a leaked document from the Bauchi INEC office, which it said exposed details of this plot against the people of the state, adding: “This plot further justifies our stance that even the cancellation of Tafawa Balewa results was orchestrated by the APC and INEC in the bid to forcefully rob the people of Bauchi of their choice of the PDP candidate, Mohammed, as their governor.

“It is public knowledge that by the results delivered at the polling units, Mohammed was already leading with over 4,000 votes after results of 19 councils were collated and announced

“With Tafawa Balewa Council, where the PDP scored 40,000 valid votes against the APC’s 29,000, it is clear that our party won the election with about 15,000 votes, only for the results of the Tafawa Balewa to be cancelled for no just cause by INEC.”

The PDP invited Nigerians to note that Tafawa Balewa result was cancelled by the state Returning Officer, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, “who unilaterally ruled that there was no result for the council, even when the Collation Officer, Mrs. Dominion Anosike, had informed the commission that there was no any incident of cancellation, violence or electoral malpractices at both the polling unit and ward levels.”

The PDP said although it vehemently rejected the cancellation of Tafawa Balewa, it stood with the people of Bauchi in the determination to go to the supplementary election on March 23 and reinforce its candidate’s victory in council, noting: “This is in addition to the resolve to vehemently resist any attempt by INEC to tamper with already declared results in the other 19 councils.”

The party urged the INEC fact-finding committee, headed by a National Commissioner, to be guided by the extant rules as established in court rulings that the polling units is a base of our elections and that once declaration has been made at the polling units and return of votes established, INEC no longer has powers to influence the results from such polling units.

It counselled the ruling party to accept its defeat, not only in Bauchi State, but also in Sokoto, Benue, Plateau, Kano and Adamawa states.