Obi Faults Conduct Of Elections, Accuses APC Of Intimidation

The vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Peter Obi, has alleged that there was an orchestrated plan to disfranchise voters in the South-East region of the country in last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections.

During a press briefing in Onitsha on Tuesday, Mr. Obi questioned why Anambra State with 2.4 million registered voters had only about 600,000 votes cast, while some states in the troubled region of the North recorded far more, even less registered voters.Mr. Obi also alleged that there was the absence of a level playing field in the run-up to the polls, as characterised by high level of intimidation and harassment of the opposition.

He also faulted INEC for insisting on the use of card readers in some parts of the country, especially in areas considered as PDP strongholds, whereas manual accreditation was allowed in some other parts of the country during the elections.

“I noticed on the day of the election that several card readers were not working. I also noticed that during the voting, the process was clumsy because card readers were not functioning and where they worked they were slow,” he said.

The former governor of Anambra State also alleged inflation of votes in some areas where the APC won, adding that the country had failed to build on the success achieved in the 2015 general elections.