March 28, (THEWILL) – The Cross River State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party has warned against deliberate manipulation of materials used for the conduct of the 2023 governorship elections in the state.
The party’s reaction follows allegations in the state of a plot to manipulate BVAS machines used for the Governorship and state house elections on March 18, 2023.
The aim of the manipulation is to reconcile the irregularities in the last Governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state.
Commenting on their concerns on the matter, the PDP State Publicity Secretary, Mike Ojisi, expressed worry and called for genuine efforts to protect the election materials from deliberate manipulation.
“After a series of meetings, arrangements have been concluded between the REC, the electoral officers (EOs) of each LG, and the Returning Officers, to bring out all the BVAS within each polling unit across the state that has overvoting in the just concluded Elections.
“With the BVAS, they would be able to thumbprint additional ballots papers to balance the votes and the number of persons that were accredited in each of the polling units across the state.
“The Governor has concluded the arrangements for this and it will commence today.
“We call on stakeholders and relevant agencies to demand for the original results sheets used in announcing the results from REC before they temper with it”, Ojisi explained.
However, in his response, the state resident electoral commissioner, Prof Gabriel Yomere, said there is no plot to manipulate the devices.
“There is no truth in the allegations that I am meeting with the governor and his team in order to reconcile and manipulate the electoral materials used for the guber election.
“Even if I succeed in manipulating the BVAS, what about the backend at the INEC portal? You can’t manipulate that.
“The only people allowed to check the BVAS are the lawyers to the political parties and they do that in the presence of INEC staff”, Professor Yomere said.
The Party’s governorship candidate during the elections, Professor Sandy Onor, has rejected the outcome of the elections saying INEC and the security agencies frustrated the will of the people.
He added that he will be seeking legal redress and expressed confidence that he will get justice in court.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
