Bakare demands forensic analysis of ballot papers

Posted by admin Elections 2011 Sunday, April 24th, 2011

^{The vice-presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Pastor Tunde Bakare, had said that there is the need for the ballot papers used in the April 16 presidential poll to be subjected to forensic investigation.}

^{Bakare also accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), of not creating a level-playing field among candidates.}

^{Bakare, who was the running-mate to the CPC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, said this during a press conference in Lagos on behalf of his party and the Buhari/Bakare Campaign Organisation yesterday.}

^{He said: “We will in line with the Electoral Act, present our case before a tribunal to compel INEC to produce ballot papers in at least 11 states, to subject them to forensic investigation. If our case is unfounded we will congratulate whoever wins.”}

^{Bakare said that the April 16 exercise was free at the levels of voting and counting, but was fraudulent at the stage of collation.}

^{He cited several cases which he said, made his party to come to the conclusion that the election was marred by irregularities.}

^{On the results from Akwa-Ibom, Bakare alleged that, “Elections in the state were marred with all sorts of rigging and voter intimidation. Government officials arrived at polling units in company of policemen and took ballot papers and ballot boxes away to undisclosed locations and stuffed the ballot boxes with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) votes. If nothing is done to curb this blatant abuse of the law, the gubernatorial election will be an outright war in the state.”}

^{Regarding the conduct of the presidential poll in Delta State, he said, “there were no result forms (Form EC 8a) in the polling unit PU: 10/22/08/002 and other polling units in the entire Uvwie LGA in Delta State. Corps members reported that they were told to go back to the secretariat to write the results.}

^{The CPC vice-presidential candidate said the party was tipped off earlier in the month, by good Samaritans about buses conveying millions of ballot papers for the presidential elections from a private printing press-Tulip Press, owned by a known PDP stalwart and a former gubernatorial candidate on the PDP platform.”}

^{He said when the men were arrested INEC claimed that it awarded the contract to the said printing press, contrary to what it earlier told the public that the ballot papers were printed abroad. “Could these ballot papers and/or others printed locally have been the ones used to inflate votes in favour of the PDP?” Bakare queried.}

^{One of other posers raised by Bakare was the fact that “the national average turnout is about 52% and about 46% when the substantially above average turnout rate in the South-South and South-East zones is excluded. Why?}

^{“The average turnout rate in the South-South and South-East zones without Ebonyi and Edo states was above the national average of about 52%. How come?}

^{“Dr. Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP got over 85% of the valid votes cast in the 11 states in the South-South and South-East zones.}

^{“All the 11 states in the two zones had a red flag for being above the national average turnout rate and or were above the 85% threshold,” Bakare said.}

^{He went on that even though the CPC presidential candidate had said he was not going to court, he had agreed that the party should seek legal redress on the issue to correct the anomalies of the April 16.}

^{Pastor Bakare also condemned the violence that erupted in the north as a result of people’s disenchantment with the results of the presidential poll. He however, said it was the outrage of people who had been unfairly denied their mandates. But he said the rioters were not instigated by the CPC, Buhari or himself.}

^{On his building that got burnt, Bakare said he could not make any insinuations as he would allow the police and the Fire Service to investigate the cause of the incident. He however added that he would lose no sleep as the burnt house was fully insured.}