The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday staged a protests at the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Port Harcourt, demanding for the certified true copies (CTC) of the results of the just concluded National Assembly, Governorship and House of Assembly elections in the state.
Recall that INEC had declared PDP candidates as winners of the February 25 National Assembly election as well as the March 18 Governorship and House of Assembly election in the state.
LEADERSHIP observed that the protesters totally blocked the entire stretch of the Waterlines Junction and GRA Junction axis of Aba-Port Harcourt leading to heavy gridlock on that axis of the road.
The PDP protesters, who were mostly youths carried placards with the inscription: “It is INEC that declares election results, Not Police; We will resist it”, “INEC Declared Us Winner and We won the election. All we demand are CTC results from INEC”, among others.
However, it could not be immediately ascertained if the protest, which was led by the Chairman of Ikwerre local government area of the state, Samuel Nwanosike and Deputy of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Eddison Ehie, was not unconnected to the planned barricade of the INEC state headquarters by members of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
The APC governorship candidate in the state, Tonye Cole, had while addressing journalists at the Commission’s office last Friday, threatened that members of the party will on Monday barricade the facility if the electoral umpire fails to release CTC of the results of the just-concluded election to them.
Cole said: “Today is not a good day; I am not happy at all. We have come to INEC to express our deep frustration over what is going on. Essentially, we are time-bound; we have 21 days from the day the election was declared to file.
“Some of our House of Assembly candidates had their results declared on March 18, on the election day. Two weeks had gone already. We have written and requested that INEC releases CTC documents.
“For two weeks now, nothing, they have not released one CTC document to us and, we have to prepare a brief, we have to go to tribunal. We have gotten court orders but they have been ignored. It tells you that something is going on but I don’t want to believe what is happening in INEC.
“I believe that at this point in time, the onus is on INEC as an independent regulator and administrator of elections to be fair; give us what we need so that we can go to court. Let us go to the tribunal and present the case but if you release documents to us a day before the tribunal; what do we do?
“We have come here today (Friday) and unfortunately, there is nobody in the office. I have spoken to the Resident Electoral Commissioner and he promised that on Monday, something will happen.
“So, we will be back on Monday and when we come, we expect to collect the documents. We expect to leave INEC with all the documents. We are not leaving this place without the documents. We expect that when we come on Monday, we will get every necessary documents so that we can go and prepare for the tribunal.”
