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Rivers APC Gives INEC 72-Hour Notice To Grant Access To Electoral Documents

Published

2 years ago

Mar 12, 2023.

The Rivers State chapter of the APC has given the INEC a 72-hour notice to provide it with electoral documents for petitions.
The request was contained in a statement alleging that the INEC was conniving with the PDP to deny the APC request.
Failure to provide the documents would result in party members blocking the commission’s headquarters in Rivers State.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has issued a 72-hour notice to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to furnish it with some electoral documents for the petitions at the Elections Petitions Tribunal.

The request was contained in a statement issued by the State Publicity Secretary, Darlington Nwauju, in Port Harcourt.

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Nwauju submitted that the commission’s office in the state has refused to grant the party’s request to access some documents used for the just concluded National Assembly election.

The APC chieftain alleged that the INEC Head of Operations in Rivers State, Mike Odeh is conniving with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state to deny the APC request.

Nwauju, who likened Odeh’s actions to stealing, said the party’s 72 hours notice was for INEC headquarters to direct the state office to furnish hit with the required documents requested.

He, however, threatened that failure to do so would attract party members blocking the commission’s headquarters in Rivers State.

Nwauju stated that “The APC in Rivers State had applied for the Certified True Copies of forms EC8A, EC8B, EC8C and other documents incidental to the recently conducted National Assembly elections in the state in which results were mutilated and or forged in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party in areas where our party clearly won and our candidates should have been declared winners if INEC had kept its promise of uploading results from the polling units to the IReV portal.

“Instructively, the said Head of Operations against both the civil service rules, INEC guidelines and the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended) has consciously and viciously erected a wall to ensure he frustrates the moves of the APC in Rivers State to retrieve the stolen mandates of our National Assembly candidates.

“By refusing to release the relevant documents earlier listed, which are at the heart of prosecuting our petitions at the Elections Petitions Tribunal knowing too well that election petitions are time bound.