Ogboru Goes to Tribunal, Claims Rigging in Delta Guber Election “is too senseless to ignore”

Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru of the Labour Party in Delta State

The Labour Party candidate in last Saturday’s gubernatorial election in Delta State Chief Great Ovedje Ogboru says that rigging in Delta Gubernatorial Election “is too senseless to ignore.” He made the claim in a press conference at Abraka on Thursday, 16 April 2015.

Ogboru then reveals that his Party is heading to the election tribunal to contest the results as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the declaration of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa as the governor-elect.

“Okowa did not score majority of lawful votes cast in the election and did not also meet the relevant constitutional provisions.

“It is our firm belief that the return of Okowa as governor-elect does not reflect the democratic will of the majority of our electorate. His said return in based on electoral irregularities and malpractices that cannot be ignored by any unbiased umpire,” he said.

Ogboru argues that, contrary to the INEC stipulation that in the event of Card readers malfunction voting should be suspended, card readers were not used in areas where votes were recorded for Okowa.

“In a curious summersault, card readers were overwhelmingly not used in Delta North and South. The election was conducted arbitrarily as dictated by PDP chieftains, who took over the duties of INEC personnel in those two senatorial districts and parts of central.

“By that singular action, some INEC officials once again allowed ‘toxic votes’ to be used to defeat the people’s will. These votes are unlawful and invalid.”

“We in the Labour Party went into the election trusting that INEC would deploy and use the card readers as enshrined in its 2015 guidelines for election officials. Regrettably, some officials of INEC violated the guideline and its further reassurance to our disadvantage,” he said.

He said that card readers were, however, used in Delta-Central senatorial district for accreditation and collation of votes.

“This implies that every vote we received is genuine, lawful, valid and legitimate,” he said.

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