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| L-R: YDP CRS Dep. Gov candidate Victor Edet, YDP CRS Gov candidate Emmanuel Undie and Agam Agam YDP faithful |
Nyok|12 March 2019
The gubernatorial candidate of the Young Democratic Party, YDP in Cross River State, Emmanuel Undie, Monday rejected the results of the winner of the 9th March 2019 governorship and State of Assembly elections NEGROIDHAVEN can report authoritatively.
Undie made this disposition known while addressing bloggers/journalists in Calabar, the state capital city. The gubernatorial candidate has further implored the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Nigeria’s electoral umpire to withdraw the already and officially announced results in view of re-conducting the general elections.
According to him, ‘I want us to make it very, very clear —for YDP Cross River State, from our campaign organisation, we reject whatever happened in Cross River State in this last election, and we want to move ahead to implore INEC to immediately withdraw the results from the public domain and consider whatever solution they must put in place to reconduct elections in Cross River…’
Speaking earlier, the Obudu-born politician argued expressly that there was no election in the state. He premised this conclusive remark on the dearth of security and enfranchisement of the citizenry. As a result, he declared the elections not to be free and fair.
‘First of all, we would like to say categorically that, in our view, there was no elections in Cross River State, given the few issues of interests that we witnessed: we thought of a free and fair elections, we thought of not disenfranchising voters: the electorates, we thought of safety, security during the elections as a key factor in a free and fair election, in this case, most of what I just mentioned were absent across the state.
Continuing, he said ‘I think that INEC, the state government and as a matter of fact the federal government are supposed to be aware of these issues of interest because they involve the electorates who cannot in themselves protect themselves or provide a secured environment.’
According to him, he saw two SUVs Landcruiser fully loaded with thugs with automatic firearms in the hands of unlicensed individuals. He alleged he has evidence of INEC colluding with interest-vested politicians to compromise the electoral process of Saturday 9th March.
His words, ‘we have evidence of INEC officers discussing and negotiating payments at a local government collation centre, that’s a serious matter; we have evidence of public servants, driving in with government vehicles to negotiate with INEC staff on what their payments will be to get certain favours done for government parties… We have evidence of government vehicles driving in to cart away voting materials, result sheets, etc; we have evidence at local government levels of INEC officials swapping results, that means the results that were prepared for this election were already handy, whatever was going on in the field was an exercise in futility, exercise declared by them null before it even started.
He faulted the military for interfering with the electoral process. He particularly drew attention to the allegation of a YDP agent in Ikom being prevented from going to his polling unit by the military. He said that he saw the police aiding and abetting criminals to compromise the electoral process instead of protecting the citizenry and electorates.
While expressing doubt at the judicial system in Nigeria, Undie informed that he would be going to court to seek justice. For him, the judicial system should be able to place a human face to the justice system: ‘do I trust the court? I don’t, I don’t trust the court, but, the problem is we represent a demography whose voices are not heard. We don’t mind whether the process is successful. On that principle we like to implore the court system to try their best to place a human face to the process.’
Efio-Ita Nyok is the blogger-in-chief, editor-in-chief and publisher of NEGROIDHAVEN
