Plateau: Youth takes over INEC office, demands declaration of Gotom as winner.
Sawabiya YarKarkara
Peoples Democratic Party PDP’s Ambassador G.Y Gotom, has accused Independent National Electoral Commission INEC and the ruling APC of manipulating votes of some Electoral areas in favour of the APC’s Diket Plang.
Speaking to journalists in Jos today, 3rd March, 2023, Gotom who is the PDP candidate for the Plateau Central Senatorial Zone seat, lamented over INEC’s failure to upload election results from Kanam Local Government into its server and delay in announcement of the results.
Gotom declared himself a winner of the Senatorial seat election, called on INEC to cancel the results in areas where over voting and mutilation of results took place.
He called on the Resident Electoral Commissioner Plateau State, Dr. Oliver Agundu to act in a sincere manner and order the Returning Officer to do the right thing by declaring him winner of the election.
According to Gotom, “Elections took place on Saturday and from Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, as at Wednesday, no results was on the Portal of INEC yet. In all these, I’m happy because am the true winner of the election, should anyone be issued out with a certificate or try anything funny this time around, we will make sure we get to the root of the matter”
Gotom claimed having substantial evidences at hand from visual audio and motions revealing how INEC portal which had (0) elections in most of those areas were been mischievously filled- in.
“We have petitioned INEC based on the section 64 subsection 7 of the 2022 Electoral Act which stipulated that when the disputed result in contentions are found not to be correct, the collation officer shall re-collate the results and announced it based on the information provided in the electoral Act”.
He alleged three issues against INEC and the APC, mutilation of results, allocation of figures to the APC in 9 federal ward in Kanam where election did not hold.
Meanwhile, youth in the Central Senatorial Zone had mobilized themselves in numbers protesting the refusal of INEC to declare Gotom as winnerof the election.
As at the time of filing in this report, the atmosphere is still tense in especially Jos the capital city of Plateau over INEC's transfer of the results from Central Zone Capital which is Pankshin to it's office in Jos.
