2011: ANPP WANTS VOTES COUNTED AT POLLING STATIONS

The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in Benue State has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that all votes are counted at polling centres during the 2011 general elections.

Mr Nathanial Haanya, the Deputy Chairman of the party, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Makurdi.

Haanya said when this was done, it would eliminate changing of results recorded at polling centres and collation points.

'The biggest challenge in the 2011 general elections is for INEC to ensure a free, fair and credible election. The ANPP has been winning elections in the state and the country at large and we will still win once this is done.

'Once there is no harassment by the law enforcement agencies, no violence and intimidation by political thugs, a free and fair election is guaranteed,' he said.

He also said that the party was warming up for the bye-elections in Tarka constituency in the state's House of Assembly on June 26.

The election is to hold, following the death of Mr. Baber Dzeremo on May 22 this year.

On the just-concluded Ward Congress delegates elections, Haanya said the election was completed without a hitch in all the 23 local government areas of the state. He said so far, the party's secretariat was yet to receive any report on abnormalities in the process, adding that local government congresses would be conducted on July 3.