Nigeria’s main opposition party on Saturday called for a forensic analysis of the ballots cast in about a third of the states in last weekend’s presidential poll, alleging they were inflated in favour of the incumbent.
The Congress for Progressive Change of former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, which has rejected the presidential election outcome, said it wanted the electoral agency to carry out a biometric examination of all ballot papers in 11 of the country’s 36 states.
“We will… present our case before competent law courts to compel INEC to subject all the ballot papers from at least 11 states… to forensic analysis,” Buhari’s running mate Tunde Bakare told journalists.
“The voting was fine but a lot of things, malpractices happened at the collation centres,” he said.
The CPC wants the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to annul results from the 11 states in southern parts of the country.
‘Fraudulent thumb printing’
Bakare, a fiery Pentecostal preacher, alleged that votes from President Goodluck Jonathan’s southern region were massively padded in his favour.
“No credible elections took place in the south-south and southeast zones and those returns were basically concocted through fraudulent thumb printing and stuffing of ballot papers… in favour of Jonathan,” said Bakare.
He cited one electoral district in the ruling party controlled south-eastern Cross River State, where according to figures he showed reporters, there were 6 031 registered voters, but total valid votes recorded were 377 517.
“This could have well been an innocent error, but yet again the ultimate beneficiary is… Jonathan [who won 98% of the ballots in that state].”
Bakare, a lawyer, absolved the INEC boss, a respected academic, saying he “is a clean man, but pushed by the system into a soakaway pit”