The All Progressives Congress (APC) has advised politicians to allow the remaining part of the electoral process to go on without intimidation and harassment by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Mr. Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), gave the advice in a statement on Sunday in Abuja while reacting to comments being made on Television and radio by some politicians.
Onanuga called on opposition political parties particularly, to allow INEC to perform its duties with regard to announcing results of the presidential and National Assembly election results.
“We have noticed the disingenuous attempts by opposition parties, spokesmen of their campaign councils and their hired talking heads on Television and radio stations to discredit the presidential and National Assembly elections conducted nationwide yesterday.”
He alleged that spokespersons of the parties had been making baseless and irresponsible allegations of electoral manipulations and other malpractices against the APC and INEC in a bid to cause disaffection and civil unrest in the country.
He said the APC PCC had noticed many partisan persons claiming to be Election Observers on radio and Television stations, presenting skewed and patently false narratives about the general conduct of the election across the country.
Onanuga said the parties had accused INEC of conspiracy to rig election results in favor of the APC, anchoring their allegation on the commission’s inability to upload election results on its website.
“While we call on INEC to expedite action on the process of uploading the results, we want to state categorically that there is nothing unusual about the seeming delay.
“INEC returning officers bringing the results to the National Collation Centre from the 36 states may be contending with possible travel logistics,” he said.
This, he said, was witnessed on day one of the collations of election results when only Ekiti State was ready with its result.
The Director APC PCC added that there could also be technical issues with INEC Results Viewing Portal which the commission would quickly resolve.
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“It is worth stating that election results have been announced and made public at polling units and duly signed by accredited party agents in line with the Electoral Law.
“There is no political party that does not have election results from all the over 176,000 polling units across the country, except for a few locations election didn’t hold. The Abuja Collation is merely ceremonial.
“While the law stipulates that the INEC chairman who is the National Returning Officer for the presidential election should declare the result.
“It is also a fact that no party can claim ignorance about its performance from every polling unit through their Situation Rooms updates from party agents,” Onanuga said.
He added that this brazen attempt to discredit an election that was adjudged to be the most peaceful, credible, open, transparent, free, and fair in the history of our country would fail.
“We suspect that the opposition parties making an unnecessary fuss over the results of the poll are only afraid of facing the reality of their defeat.
“Elections are not a do-or-die affair, they are meant to be won by some and lost by some.
“The 2023 presidential election has been successfully conducted and results announced at polling units, wards, local councils, and at the state level.
“We advise politicians to allow the remaining part of the process to go on without intimidation and harassment of INEC,” he said.
Onanuga called on the security agencies to be alert and ruthlessly deal with anyone seeking to destabilize the country with reckless, subversive, and obnoxious statements on social media, TV, and radio platforms.