The Federal High Court in Abuja has been told that the purportedly collated and announced results of the Delta South All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial primary election conducted on May 18, 2026, were a daylight robbery and a rape of democracy.
A contestant in the primary election, Prince Michael Diden, on Thursday claimed that the purportedly collated results in the wards and the eight local government areas of the senatorial district were not a true reflection of the election.
Prince Diden, while testifying in his suit against the declaration of Senator Joel Onowakpo Thomas as winner of the primary election, alleged that the senator, the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) colluded to enter falsified results in favour of Joel Onowakpo.
Led in evidence by his lawyer, Bankole Joel Akomolafe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Diden maintained that he won the primary poll by a wide margin but was robbed during collation.
The politician told Justice Mohammed Garba Umar that he had agents in all the wards where the election took place and was supplied with ward-by-ward results by the agents.
Specifically, the contestant claimed that manipulation of results took place at the collation centre, where results were allegedly falsified by APC officials in favour of the declared winner.
Diden, a former Chairman of the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC), sued Senator Joel Onowakpo, accusing him of conspiring with some APC officials to falsify the results of the primary election in his favour.
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