The candidate of the PDP in the Kogi West Senatorial District rerun election, Dino Melaye, has condemned the results, calling it ‘fictitious’.
Melaye, who was earlier elected to serve in the Senate in February 2019, had the election challenged by his closest rival, Smart Adeyemi of the APC.
According to Channels TV, Melaye rejected the result while speaking with journalists in Abuja, alleging that the just concluded election “was marred by compromise, extreme violence, and rigging”.
“The innovation is that what we had is what I have christened ‘helicopter election’. For the first time, rigging has been advanced to the level that now uses a helicopter in perpetuating this electoral atrocity manifested yesterday.
“Helicopter hovering around polling units in Lokoja, dropping bullets on innocent, harmless citizens and electorate; and as I speak, yesterday, teargas being fired from this helicopter.”
He said the violence witnessed in his community “should give the INEC reasons to stop the collation of results on Sunday.”
“Despite the fact that this helicopter was used in harassing, intimidating and firing innocent electorate, the votes of those places were carted away and taken to the government house, stuffed and brought back to the collation centre and they have been accepted and admitted and collation is ongoing.
“They brought mayhem on my own community and even killed my nephew, we are waiting to see what INEC will do, but I reject in totality, this fictitious result and I want to say that all these are not about the election, it is about Dino Melaye,” he stated.