The Governorship Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, has alleged that manipulation of the results of last Saturday’s elections.
Agbaje, who addressed a Press Conference in his campaign office on Ikorodu Road, Lagos, expressed concern over the delay in the release of the result of the election. He spoke before the release of the results in Lagos.
His words: “The problems started from the polling units. The guidelines were very clear, that after election and counting of votes, election results are supposed to be pasted on the wall at the polling unit. We have no reports that election results were pasted anywhere in Lagos State. That was the beginning of the problem.
“At the collation centres, we had a lot of intimidation of our agents. The ruling party had a multiplicity of party agents representing it. We had a situation where officails of the Lagos State government showed up and were represented in their numbers against the lone voices of our agents. We had a situation where our collation agents were arrested, leaving us unrepresented at the collation stage. That again is not acceptable us.
“We go back to the election day, where in a lot of cases, we had a situation where the card readers did not function, including my own voting unit. It created a situation where the electoral agents were unable to verify the identity of voters vis-a-vis the PVCs presented.
“Now we are calling on security agents to bring to book those who caused the mayhem in Okota, Coker Aguda and several other places in Lagos State. And that is very important. If we are going to talk about democracy, then we have to practise the culture. It means that everybody will play his part. Voters will come and vote and we have assured them that their votes count.
“Where we disenfranchise many voters then we are just playing lip service to our democracy. We have places where not less than 37 polling units in one local government have their votes cancelled and stolen. And this was done very openly; it is on camera.”
