ICYMI: Presidential poll was rigged — but LP votes not rigged, says Datti

Datti Baba-Ahmed, vice-presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), says the February 25 election was “rigged” but the votes recorded by his party were not “rigged”.

On March 1, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the election.

Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who had 6,984,520 votes and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 6,101,533 votes.

However, the LP and PDP are challenging the results of the election in court.

Speaking on Wednesday in an interview on Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed claimed that those who “rigged” the election had the effrontery to ask others to approach the court to seek redress.

He maintained that the over six million votes garnered by his party in the presidential election were not rigged.

When asked if those who won national assembly seats on the platform of the LP also rigged, Baba-Ahmed responded: “Any of them who rigs should be taken to court and have it (national assembly seat) taken away. I’m talking about the presidential election.”

He claimed that the LP got more than the number of votes recorded for it by the electoral umpire, adding that INEC “sneaked” to announce the final results of the election by 4:00 am.

“It is there in INEC guidelines and electoral act that no collation shall be made without reference to the IReV. They were collating without reference to IReV. So we cried out, saying stop this. They did not,” Baba-Ahmed said.

“It has never happened in the history of Nigeria. After adjourning without specifying the time, at 4 am, a so-called INEC chairman sneaked to the collation centre, announced the results and declared the winner.”