Bayelsa poll: Protest at INEC office over ‘doctored’ results in Nembe Bassambiri

Some residents, including women, youths, and state and National Assembly members have commenced a protest at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over Saturday’s governorship election results from the Nembe Bassambiri area of Bayelsa State.

The protesters gathered at the INEC office in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, on Sunday morning to protest the alleged move by some INEC officials to distort the votes in the gubernatorial election.

The aggrieved protesters, at about 9 a.m., blocked the INEC office at the ever-busy Swali Road to stop the electoral umpire from accepting the results from Nembe Bassambiri which they said were concocted.

The Bayelsa State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Dambo Biriyai, (SAN), who spoke to journalists during the protest, said the election did not take place in Nembe Bassambiri.

Biriyai called on INEC REC in the state, Obo Effanga, and the South-South Commissioner for INEC, May Agbamuche-Mbu, to do what is right by rejecting the alleged fake results.

He stressed that PDP members, who visited their country home of Bassambiri, were prevented entry by the combined team of SWAT police officers and thugs allegedly hired by the All Progressives Congress (APC).

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The commissioner further alleges that the APC only wrote “outrageous” results that were not products of any voting.

Biriyai said: “If what we are here for is allowed to go on, it would be a massive rape on democracy. We are here because we were disenfranchised in Nembe Bassambiri. And no voting took place there.

“Precisely on the 10th of November, in order to vote for our candidate, about 60 buses left Yenagoa to Nembe Bassambiri with escort. When we got there, the SWAT team was blocking the entrance with other APC youths.

“They said we should come down. When one of our boys, Barr. Dilli, came down; they manhandled him and he escaped by the whiskers.

“Thereafter, they started blocking them up to the extent that they threw tear gas at us. They said we cannot come in. So most of us were scared so they had to leave. There were no votes. No election in Nembe Bassambiri constituency 2 and 3.

“And we now found out that results starts coming it on social media. Results that were uploaded in the BVAS. And you see that these results are the kind of results that are so outrageous.

“We don’t know where they are coming from. So we are here to appeal to INEC. We are not coming to discourage INEC. We just want them to follow the rule of law, ensure that they do what is right in line with Mr President’s resolve that there should be free and fair elections in this country.

“They manipulated everything. INEC should cancel Nembe Bassambiri results because there were no elections there.”

The Star