TRACKING>>Awka—THE Vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, in Saturday’s election, Mr. Peter Obi, yesterday accused the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, of deliberately disenfranchising majority of registered voters in the South East geo-political zone and rejected the outcome of the exercise.
Addressing reporters in Onitsha, Obi alleged that the general election was systematically planned to ensure that the South East zone did not participate fully in the electoral process.
According to him, out of about 10 million registered voters in the zone, only twenty percent were able to cast their votes.
He said: “You will recall that on the Election Day, I said that the process was clumsy and we also had major problem of card readers, which made it difficult for most people to vote.
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“When over 400,000 card readers got burnt at INEC office in Awka, it became clear that something was wrong somewhere. INEC could not save the situation and they did not allow people to vote manually.
“But in some other parts of the country, people were allowed to vote manually and it was accepted by the electoral body. Now, how can you tell me that a state like Yobe and Borno produced the number of voters that is higher than those of Anambra and Ebonyi states put together?
“The two northern states are areas that have been at war and I wonder how they got Card Readers that were working so well, despite the war situation they found themselves in.”.
Obi regretted that instead of the country to build on achievements of the 2015 general elections, the reverse was the situation in 2019, adding that the impressive turn-out of voters was discouraged by the performance of the electoral body last Saturday.
He also recalled what he described as the incessant harassment and attack of PDP members as the election approached, saying the action was part of the authority’s bid to intimidate them into submission.
Obi, however, noted that it was not for him to demand for the cancellation of the election, adding that only the party could make its position known on the matter.
