BEING THE TEXT OF THE 2ND PRESS STATEMENT BY APC CANDIDATE, OLOROGUN O’TEGA EMERHOR CALLING FOR THE CANCELLATION OF THE OCTOBER 12, 2013 BYE- ELECTION RESULT FOR DELTA CENTRAL SENATORIAL DISTRICT THERE WAS NO VALID ELECTION. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I thank you for coming. In this my 2nd press briefing, I will like to be up front with two points. 1) We maintain that on October 12, 2013, No election in the form envisaged in our electoral laws took place in Delta Central. What took place was a militarised operation calculated to deprive voters of their right to vote and to provide the PDP the environment to select a Senator. We again call on INEC to cancel the purported election and undertake a re-run immediately. 2) We would like to correct that the home of the Deputy Governor, the PDP candidate and one John Oguma were not the ones used for the massive ballot paper thump printing in Ughelli South as earlier indicated. We have now found out that those high profile locations were avoided for obvious reasons. In fact, the thump printing plan was a lot more comprehensive as key local and state officials and party stalwarts were all mobilised into this exercise across the Senatorial District, using varied pre-assigned locations. We have gathered all of the evidences including videotapes and will be making same public in due course. 3) The plot for this sham election was simple: Lock down the Senatorial District with the military allowing no movement by the opposition parties; provide security personnel to key PDP functionaries who then moved to disrupt voting; disperse and intimidate voters and opposition agents and cart away election materials for thump printing in predetermined locations. 4) In strongholds of opposition parties, the PDP conspired with INEC and Youth Corpers to delay or refuse to carry out voting exercise. They then later carted away materials for thump printing and falsification of results. 5) Later at night at the collation centre, the brute force of the security forces was used to keep away opposition party agents to allow the PDP write and allocate results to themselves and to the other parties. The so-called final results were signed by only PDP, the only party allowed into the collation centre, and the only party that witnessed the announcement of the results at about 2am on Sunday October 13, 2013. 6) The tragedy of this so-called election is that INEC became an onlooker while the PDP and employees of the State Government engaged by INEC as ad hoc staff ran away with the process. Independent monitors and indeed, INEC staff themselves have testified to this that INEC lost control of the process to the Delta State PDP government. 7) We noticed that Channels Television appeared to have been hoodwinked to keep showing the scene of my voting in Evwreni Ward as evidence of peaceful voting. How come the PDP cannot provide more video evidence of peaceful election in any other location than my voting? Don’t they have picture of peaceful voting in any other location other than my ward? In conclusion, our position is that this is not an issue of malpractices arising from an election which is meant for questioning at an election tribunal. INEC, based on all that transpired, is required to make a judgement and to answer a fundamental question as to whether election as envisaged by our electoral law did take place on October 12. Our answer to this question is an emphatic NO. This is why we are calling on INEC to cancel the purported election and undertake a re-run. 9) We would like to use this opportunity to thank the Delta Central people who waited in vain to vote on October 12 but instead were unduly harassed and traumatised. We thank them and all our supporters and appeal for calm and restraint in the face of this bare-faced robbery! We still believe justice will be done as we explore all legal avenues open to us. Let’s keep the faith! Thank you. Olorogun O’tega Emerhor,OON APC Senatorial Candidate 18/10/2013
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:15:12 +0000
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