The legal adviser to Senator Ned Nwoko, Chris Okobah, has rejected the outcome of the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial primary election held in Delta North on May 18.
PrimeTimes Nigeria reports that Okobah insisted that Nwoko, the incumbent senator representing Delta North, won the contest.
Former Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, had earlier been declared the winner of the primary after reportedly polling 113,309 votes.
Nwoko was said to have scored 2,612 votes, while Maryam Ali reportedly got 40 votes.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Friday, Okobah said records from the field showed that Nwoko won the primary.
“From our records, Senator Ned Nwoko won overwhelmingly with 123,000 votes, while Dr Ifeanyi Okowa secured only about 5,000 votes. We make this statement confidently because we have evidence from the field,” he said.
According to him, Nwoko’s camp had video evidence, agents’ reports and ward-level records from all 98 wards in the senatorial district to support its claim.
Okobah alleged that manipulation of the process started before election day.
He claimed that members of the electoral panel were kept in government VIP lodges and made inaccessible to aspirants and their supporters.
He also alleged that many officials assigned to conduct the exercise failed to appear at polling venues, while delegates were intimidated and disrupted by violence.
Okobah further stated, “That was where the rigging began. The panel members were allegedly appointed and controlled by powerful state interests, while the returning officers were reportedly commissioners, advisers, assistants, or persons connected to the state government.
“There was no proper accreditation, transparent voting, honest counting, and genuine collation. In many places, what they called an election was nothing more than a political fraud dressed in party colours.”
‘We Reject This Charade’
The lawyer also accused unnamed individuals of vote buying, intimidation of party members and inducement of delegates during the primary.
He said the result announced by “the state government and its compromised agents” could not stand against what he described as evidence gathered across the district.
“We therefore reject this charade in its entirety. We demand a full review of the process, the cancellation of all manipulated results, and accountability for everyone involved in this shameful assault on democracy,” he added.
When contacted, the National Secretary of the APC, Senator Ajibola Basiru, said the party had yet to release official results from the primaries.
He said the process was still before the election appeal committee.
Basiru said, “Ignore anything you read or hear outside the party. For now, everything is still at the appeal stage.
“Anybody doing or saying anything else is just doing drama.”