Akwa Ibom State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr. Mike Igini, has denied manipulating the Presidential and National Assembly election results in the state.
Igini made this known in an interview with our source in Uyo on Saturday, saying “the election was not manipulated. Elections were won and lost at the polling units.”
“The allegations are incorrect, we have a total of 2,980 polling units, I was not in any these polling units from the opening to the close of the polls. I have no vote to given nor will I allow anybody to manipulate the election process,” Igini said.
He noted that the commission had put in place, anti-rigging devices to check election malpractice in the state.
Igini explained that the strength of the political parties were determined on the Election Day at the polling units.
The REC said that henceforth, no politician would have access to poll officials in the state.
The Akwa Ibom REC added by saying “No politician will know the level of presiding and collation officers in the state. They can no longer be the ones to supply ad-hoc staff that functions in those categories.”
He noted that the era where politicians were writing results had ended in Akwa Ibom, alleging that politicians before now carried result sheets to their houses, thumb print and re-write results.
“What they used to do in time past is to write results but it is now that they allow people to vote their conscience. The era of writing results on behalf of the good people of Akwa Ibom is gone forever,” Igini said.
Reacting, Sen. Ita Enang, the Senior Special Adviser to President Buhari on National Assembly Matters, said that there were several irregularities during the Presidential and National Assembly elections in the state.
“The results in Akwa Ibom do not in any manner reflect the true voting and will of the people of the state. It was heavily and massively manipulated by the PDP in collision with an alliance with INEC’s permanent and Ad-hoc staff in the state. Throughout the course of the campaign, I try to personally avoid castigating INEC, i have aligned myself with all the complaints that we as a party made against the Akwa Ibom REC. And I have thought that in the course of the elections that he will display what I thought I knew about him in terms of integrity but the last elections of Feb 23, is the lowest low,” Enang alleged.
