By Christian George
The Young Progressives Party in Akwa Ibom State was reported to have refused to sign INEC’s result sheet after the March 18 governorship poll.
According to Daily Post, YPP was the only party that refused to sign the result sheet presented by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, at Udo Udoma, Uyo, on Sunday where Eno Umoh was declared the governor-elect, with claims that the elections were massively rigged, coupled with violence and killings.
The party secretary, Amb Kelvin Umo disclosed while addressing a press conference at the party’s secretariat, Uyo, on Monday.
He alleged that the just concluded election was monetarily induced.
He explained that the opposition party went as far as donating up to $5000 to each ward across the 329 wards in the state to buy votes.
In his words, “there was a clear deployment of monetary inducement as a weapon on the poverty-stricken voters of the state. Credible intelligence suggests that the state government and the PDP agents paid about N1.3 Million per unit across the 4,353 units in the state, $5,000 to each ward across the 329 wards as part of their vote-buying strategy.”
He also alleged that most of the results were pre-written, adding that some supporters and members of the party were chased away from their polling units.
He claimed that elections were hijacked to individuals’ houses where the results were allegedly manipulated, adding that appending his signature would mean consent.
However, the Publicity Secretary of PDP, Mr Borono Bassey has debunked YPP’s report of manipulating the election.
He said that there was no record of an infraction during the election as international observers, the media and other election stakeholder groups and monitors had toured the entire 4,353 polling units across the State and in their various reports have not mentioned incidences of infractions.
