Labour Party vows to challenge election results in court

The Labour Party (LP) has questioned the method of collating the result of last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly Elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), stating it will dispute the decision in court.

The LP claimed that the majority of its members were purposefully disenfranchised across the country, but were more discriminating in its strongholds.

While the party made inroads with high votes in most parts of Northern Nigeria, LP members were deliberately prevented from voting, chased away violently from polling units, or had ballot papers and boxes destroyed and burned in others, according to a statement issued on Sunday by the party’s National Secretary, Alhaji Umar Farouk Ibrahim.

He pointed out Lagos, Rivers, Bayelsa, Kano, Yobe, and Edo states as places where such acts were rampant, in violation of the Electoral Act 2022 as amended.
Umar stated that in certain regions, INEC workers and electoral materials were not deployed to areas known to be Labour Party strongholds, or were deployed late to frustrate party members who, psychologically, grew tired of waiting and had to abandon voting units due to dread of the unknown.

“The delay by INEC to upload and publish results, particularly where the Labour Party is already known to have taken the lead, is also concerning, and we believe it is purposeful in order to irritate our party and our supporters,” he added.

Umar also claimed that intelligence from the field revealed that electorates identified as Labour Party supporters were tactically denied access to their polling units across the Northern states by some officials who conspired with others to confuse the electorates by insisting their polling units were different and sending them to the wrong ones. He said that this irritated voters and reduced Labour Party votes, which would have more than doubled if the right things had been done.

LP demanded that INEC declare a checkmate and summon its polling officials to order, as well as impose disciplinary penalties in accordance with the amended Electoral Act 2022.

The Labour Party National Secretary stated unequivocally that the party will contest the results and the ultimate result in court.

He urged party members and supporters to be calm, to obey the law, but to be encouraged by their efforts thus far, and to mobilize even more for the next round of elections, as the party works to redress the injustice done to her in the Saturday presidential and National Assembly elections.