At a press conference yesterday, Umana Okon Umana, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State, showed thousands of ballot papers that voters actually cast for his party in Ibesikpo local government area, but which were isolated and thrown away by rogue staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission in collusion with officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The discarded ballots, which were just for the Ibesikpo local government area alone, offered an indication of the depth of electoral malpractice that characterized the polls in Bayelsa State on Saturday.