Nigeria’s opposition party, PDP, lauds EU report, says it confirms 2019 general elections were rigged

The National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has lauded the European Union (EU) report on the conduct of the 2019 general elections.

The party said fresh revelations made in the report further vindicated its claim that the February 23 Presidential election was rigged to favour President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The EU Election Observation Mission had in its final report on the 2019 general election released on Saturday said the election was not transparent and was marred by violence, voter intimidation and harassment.

The report, however, noted that the election was an improvement on the 2015 elections.

But in a statement released on Sunday by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the revelations of manipulations as detailed in the EU report further validates “queries by majority of Nigerians that President Buhari was not validly returned for a second term in office.”

The statement read, “The world can now see that the PDP has not been crying wolf in insisting that the election was out rightly rigged with the cancellation of millions of PDP votes, alteration of results and allocation of fictitious votes to the APC.

“Nigerians are still in shock over the revelations by EU of how about 2.8 million votes were deliberately ‘cancelled without sufficient accountability’ and how several returning officers gave no reason for the cancellations.

“More shocking is the iniquity committed at the national collation center, headed by the INEC chairman, where the EU report exposed inconsistent numbers, distortions and a large discrepancy of 1.66 million more registered voters, as announced by INEC on 14 January, compared to those announced by state returning officers during the collation of presidential results.”

READ ALSO: EU observers release final report on 2019 elections, note major issues but conclude it was an improvement on 2015

The party noted that the report has “further exposed the iniquity committed by the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC by listing how ballot boxes were compromised, how essential materials were missing, how voter register was not always ticked as required and how manual authentication procedures were not correctly followed.”

Commending the EU for the courage in allegedly “exposing the evils committed by the APC and INEC in the 2019 general elections,” PDP called for the prosecution of those in INEC who supposedly perpetrated such crime against the nation.

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