Emeka Okafor, Umuahia
Against his defeat at the Saturday’s Senatorial Seat Election, All Progressive Congress Senatorial Candidate for Abia Central, Rep. Sam Onuigbo objected to the conduct of the election disclosing that the Independent National Electoral Commission,(INEC) failed to include the name of his Party on the result sheet for the election.
Onuigbo who came third from the result declared by the Returning Officer for the election, Prof Udo Harbert in Umuahia, however declared the Labour Party Candidate, Darlington Nwokocha who also is serving member at the House of Representatives.
Reacting to his defeat in a Press Statement issued to Journalists in Umuahia, Wednesday, Onuigbo attributed the non inclusion of his Party’s name in the Result sheet made “ the documentation of my scores in the election was shambolic”
“This made a mess of your votes for me and left our votes at the mercy of Presiding Officers who chose to either leave out the result, is the cord it among the invalid votes or in rare cases create a column within their own hands to enter it”.
He then queried why his name was omitted on the result sheet, “This puzzle should be resolved by INEC and the leadership of my Party APC that made no effort to correct the anormaly at the Appropriate time”
The defeated Senatorial candidate however disclosed that he has consulted his attorney on the appropriate response “to this grave omission, let me State in clear terms that I reject in it’s totality the strange figure of 7,997 votes as manufactured and allocated to me and my party by INEC in an effort to save their face”.
In a related deveploment, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has lost the Abia South senatorial district election to his rival, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe of the All Progressive Grand Alliance(APGA).
Senator Abaribe polled a total of 49,693 votes to defeat his closest rivals and the candidate of the Labour Party, Chinedu Onyeizu, who got 43,903 votes.
Governor Ikpeazu came third with 28,422 votes. He contested the Abia South Senatorial district election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The returning officer for the election Prof. Georgina Ugwuanyi, declared Abaribe the winner of the election in Aba on Tuesday after which controversy of inconclusive election was insinuated.
According to a source, the development is “coming a few hours after the election was declared inconclusive by the returning officer citing a substantial number of polling units, totalling 108 votes which had issues requiring a rescheduled election.”
Prof. Ugwuanyi, said that she had to return to declare results for the election because she was asked by the INEC office in Abuja to announce winners in the election.
