Bende women and youths in Abia State’s Bende Local Government Area on Saturday demanded an outright cancellation of the polls, particularly for the Bende federal constituency National Assembly seat.
Carrying placards with various inscriptions claiming that the election was won by the Labour Party candidate, Chief Frank Chinasa.
Blocking the Uzuakoli-Akara Road and chanting anti-INEC songs, they claimed that the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, received the majority of votes from Bende voters, but expressed surprise at the number of votes allotted to him by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Ben Kalu of the All Progressive Congress, APC, was declared the winner of the Bende federal constituency poll by INEC after polling 10,020 votes, Chinasa came in second with 6, 818 votes, and Nnenna Ukaeje of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, came in third with 3,930 votes.
However, the protesters claimed that the INEC results were manipulated and did not accurately reflect the will of the people.
Mrs. Chinechetam Mbah, their spokesperson, stated that INEC’s failure to transmit election results from various polling units, contrary to the commission’s earlier promise, was a deliberate ploy to manipulate the outcome of the elections.
She claimed that INEC purposefully delayed the arrival of voting materials in most polling units in the Labour Party’s stronghold in order to disenfranchise its supporters.
“The whole electoral process was faulty. Materials couldn’t get to all the polling units on time; and some of the BVAS machines were faulty and could not provide optimal performances,” she lamented.