PDP refuses to sign presidential election result sheet

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has refused to sign the result sheet of the presidential election which was announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja.

President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) emerged winner of the election after polling 15,191, 847 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP who got 11,262,978 votes.

PDP Agent, Osita Chidoka, walked out of the hall at the National Collation Centre on Wednesday when the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, requested that party agents come forward to sign the result sheet.

However, Mr Osita told journalists on his way out that the PDP rejects the results for three reasons earlier raised by the party.

He said the party expected INEC would have projected the result of what the smart card readers used for accreditation of voters.

“The second one is the issues we raised about the number of registered vis-à-vis if what the chairman now calls collated voters means that 1.6 million people are missing in the voter register.

“We think that the issue is substantial enough to require a resolution.

“We also believed that difference between the accredited voters and the total votes cast which came to about 750,000 votes, requires an issue to be looked at.

“Finally, we believe that INEC needs to look at the cancellations that took place in the election impacting 2.7 million.

“So, in our view, this election needs to be looked at again and possibly we would have had a re-run, more importantly,” Osita said.

Meanwhile, the INEC boss, before announcing the result, assured that the difference in the valid votes and cancellation were insignificant to impact on the general outcome of the election.