Nigeria opposition alleges election was tampered with
Nigeria’s main opposition party on Tuesday demanded a halt to vote counting from last week’s presidential election, citing electoral fraud.
The call came after unofficial results revealed current President Muhammadu Buhari, from the All Progressives Congress (APC), had an unassailable lead.
Tanimu Turaki, a spokesman for the opposition PDP party, said someone had tampered with the hand-held electronic machines that check biometric voter identity cards, leading him to call for an “immediate halt to the ongoing collation of results.”
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Turaki said the number of accredited voters in the northeastern state of Yobe, won by President Buhari, exceeded the number of votes cast.
He demanded that data from those machines be released to all parties, saying that until that happened, vote counting should stop.
“The PDP predicates this demand on available evidence to the effect that data from the card readers are being reconfigured to suit the manipulations” of the ruling party, he said.
He also said there was “credible information” that the election in neighboring Borno state was a “figure-writing exercise” done according to the “whims and caprices” of the APC.
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Unassailable lead
Current figures put President Buhari ahead by nearly 3.5 million votes, after a campaign in which he asked voters to give him another chance to tackle corruption, insecurity and a failing economy.
The former military dictator may have to wait until Wednesday for final results to be released, assuming vote counting proceeds.
Election observers said the election was generally peaceful, although dozens of people were killed in the process.
aw/amp (AP, AFP, Reuters)
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