Timpire Sylva, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the just concluded governorship election in Bayelsa State, declared that he would challenge the result of the election in court.
The Independent National Electoral Commission announced the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and incumbent governor of the state, Seriake Dickson, as the winner of the election on Sunday.
Addressing journalists on Monday, Mr. Sylva alleged that INEC and the PDP worked in concert to rig the election in favour of the PDP.
He said he had lodged a complain prior to the election, that the present structure of INEC in the state would not conduct a free and fair election.
According to him, the INEC officials were assembled by the immediate-past administration to deliver the state to PDP in last general elections.
This was the same team that returned almost all the votes in Bayelsa to the former president.
Then he knew that these people could not have given us a free and fair treatment. But unfortunately, our cries fell on deaf ears. Yesterday, they proved themselves true to type.
Mr. Sylva said that the election could have been further declared inconclusive since about 53,000 votes were still outstanding as cancelled votes.
He added that results were cancelled in places where APC won but where PDP won, the results were accepted.
The former governor alleged further stated that the rigging started from the distribution of materials, as election materials were diverted because they were taken to voting centers by vehicles provided by the PDP.
He added that it was the same set of collation officers, and other officers used in the December election were used on Saturday’s election, a situation he said aided the rigging process.
Mr. Sylva maintained that if the election in Bayelsa State was free and fair, the APC would always win.
He appealed to the supporters of the party to keep calm.
Meanwhile, 14 of the 20 parties that participated in the election have advised Mr. Sylva to accept the outcome of the poll in good faith.
The parties, which endorsed the results of the poll, expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the January 9 supplementary poll and called on Mr. Sylva to join forces to move the state forward
