The Action Congress of Nigeria has criticised the Presidency for attempting to usurp the role of the Independent National Electoral Commission, by describing the rerun election to the Imo House of Assembly in Oguta as inconclusive.
In a statement on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it was up to INEC to determine whether the election was "inconclusive" or marred by "violence and irregularities", not the Presidency.
ACN said, "To the best of our knowledge, it is either the candidates or the parties involved in an election that can take a legal recourse over any perceived irregularities. It therefore baffles us that the Presidency has rushed to declare the election inconclusive and marred by rigging, and to call for the prosecution of those involved, simply because its preferred candidate lost.
"According to the information at our disposal, INEC cancelled the results in eight of the 232 polling booths for one reason or the other. That is less than four per cent of the total number of booths, and it is definitely not enough to make an election 'inconclusive', as the Presidency did by assuming the role of an umpire."
Also, the Peoples Democratic Party on Wednesday however berated Imo State Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha, over what it called a persistent desperate attempt to truncate the wish of the people in the rerun, describing his actions as shamelessly undemocratic.
PDP Acting National Publicity Secretary, Chief Tony Okeke, in statement alleged that attempt by the governor and his party, the APGA, to "rig the election and the subsequent sustained bizarre efforts by them to unilaterally declare a fraudulent election result even after the INEC had declared same inconclusive, was a window into the jaundiced disposition of the opposition to free and fair elections."
Meanwhile, INEC said it declared last Saturday's election conducted in Oguta constituency of Imo State as inconclusive because of incidents of violence and unruly conduct by some politicians.
The Punch