PDP demands investigation of INEC Chairman, sanction for compromised 2023 election

The Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has come under fire as the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP on Friday accused him of compromising to rig the 2023 presidential election.

The party said, he sabotaged the uploading and transmission of results di­rectly from the Polling Units in order to allow criminal muti­lation, alteration and switching of election results across the nation in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking at a press conference on Friday in Abuja, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said that the Commission violated the Electoral Act, while he asked the INEC Chairman to resign with immediate effect.

PDP called on the Department of State Services (DSS) to investigate Yakubu over alleged electoral offences.

The party also urged the International Community to sanction the INEC boss for undermining democracy in Africa’s most populous nation.

According to the party, the February 25 presidential and parliamentary elections were marred with infractions, brazen violation of the provi­sions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and criminal manipulation and alteration of election results by the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to subvert the will of Nigerians.

“The PDP has also reviewed the latest scheme by INEC to reconfigure the BVAS devices, erase and destroy evidence of its manipulation of the Presi­dential election, deny Nigerians and political parties, especially our Party and Candidate access to relevant information required to prosecute our case at the Pres­idential Election Tribunal.

“From all indications, the INEC under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu was compromised to rig the election by brazenly violating the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 as well as INEC’s Regu­lations, Guidelines and Manual issued for the election.

The party noted that several evidence abounds in States across the six Geo-Political Zones of the Country where winning figures lawfully scored by the PDP were switched in favour of the APC; where results sheet from polling centers won by the PDP were de­stroyed and replaced with fake results sheets in which APC was allocated unearned winning fig­ures.

“This further explains why the INEC Chairman rushed to an­nounce and declare manipulated results that were not transmitted directly from the Polling Units to INEC’s Server/Website and ignored the objections and com­plaints raised during the collation of results in deliberate violation of the provisions of Section 64 (4) (a) and (b), 64 (6) (a)-(d), and 65 (1) (c) of the Electoral Act. 2022.