Bassey Rejects Presidential Election Result, Seeks Its Review

Bassey Inyang in Calabar

The Senator representing Cross River South Senatorial District, Mr. Gershom Bassey, has disagreed with the result of the presidential election announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following the February 25, 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections.

According to Bassey who served as the coordinator of the Cross River State wing of the PCC of the Atiku/Okowa said the result announced by the INEC was unacceptable. He argued that the electoral body clearly violated the law and processes for the announcement of the results of the elections.

Speaking in Calabar, yesterday, he stressed that INEC clearly violated the electoral law in announcing the result, just as he called for its reviewed or outright cancellation and a fresh one conducted.

“I do not have confidence in the results declared so far by INEC, and the reason is very simple. We are the people that passed that electoral law and it is very clear in the law that there are three stages of the process when you get to the polling unit.

“The first stage is the verification stage where you use BVAS, the second is when you thumbprint and vote after you have been verified and the third stage is uploading of the results after they have been announced at the polling unit.

“In a situation where you vote, result is declared at the polling unit but it is not uploaded, which is part of the process, it means that the process is immediately fatally flawed. Uploading the results 24-48 hours later is unacceptable because the essence of uploading immediately which is transparency, is completely gone,” Bassey said.

Continuing, Bassey said: “So nobody can tell me it is a transparent election because at the very least, it has not complied with the law which is a problem immediately.

“So INEC has a very big issue, that is why you find a lot of people calling for the cancellation of the election or a complete overview of every result, and the only way to do that is by bringing every point unit’s result, put it against what the returning officers had brought from the states and compare.

“So I do not accept the results of the presidential election in any way, shape or form as it is presently constituted.”