On Saturday, Bende women and youth in Abia State’s Bende Local Government Area demanded that the elections, particularly for the Bende federal constituency National Assembly seat, be completely canceled.
carrying signs saying that Chief Frank Chinasa, a candidate for the Labour Party, had won the election.
They blocked the Uzuakoli-Akara Road while singing anti-INEC songs and asserted that Bende voters overwhelmingly supported Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party, but expressed surprise at the amount of votes that the Independent National Election Commission, INEC, gave him.
Ben Kalu of the All Progressive Congress, APC, received 10,020 votes, Chinasa received 6,818 votes, and Nnenna Ukaeje of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, received 3,930 votes. Ben Kalu was declared the victor of the Bende federal constituency poll by INEC.
However, the demonstrators claimed that the INEC-announced results were manipulated and did not accurately represent the will of the populace.
In contrast to the commission’s earlier pledge, their spokesperson, Mrs. Chinechetam Mbah, said that INEC’s failure to transfer the results of the election from the various polling units was a premeditated plot to alter the outcomes of the polls.
She claimed that INEC purposefully delayed the delivery of voting materials to the majority of polling places in the Labour Party’s stronghold in order to deny voting rights to those who support it.
She bemoaned, “The entire voting process was flawed. Supplies couldn’t reach all polling places on time, and some of the BVAS machines were broken and unable to work at their best.
“When the votes were counted, the results were not immediately uploaded. After 24 hours, they left with the results, duplicates, and uploaded results we believe to be fraudulent, claiming there were network troubles.
She said, “INEC failed to provide logistics and transportation for all the polling units, which resulted in the disfranchisement of several polling units in various wards.