Eniola Olayemi
All Progressives Congress (APC) Abia Central Senatorial candidate in the just concluded National Assembly, Senator Nkechi J. Nwaogu has challenged the victory of former Governor of the State and incumbent Abia Central Senator, Theodore Ahamefule Orji at the February 23 poll.
Nwaogu speaking with our reporter in Aba, the commercial nerve of the state also called for the cancellation of the entire result as announced by INEC.
The former lawmaker who alleged that the election in the senatorial district was marred by a lot of irregularities also accused INEC of conniving with the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the election and as well, disenfranchising the electorate of their rights of expressing their choice through the ballot.
According to Nwaogu, she would be challenging the victory of Sen. Orji in court if INEC failed to do the needful
“I wish to say that the results that we are seeing in the social media are concocted. They are not true reflection of who the people of Abia Central voted for. The results shown in the social media are fake, false and are not genuine. I want to urge the public to disregard that.
“I totally reject it and I am calling on INEC to cancel the election and fix a new date for the Abia Central Senatorial District election. If they have announced it, which we do not know, I am also saying that I reject what was announced and I am challenging the result if it has been announced and I will challenge it up to the court.
“The election that took place on February 23 especially the conduct of the Abia Central Senatorial District was a charade. For instance, in my local government of Osisioma LGA, no election material came in until around 2pm and in less than three hours, INEC officials folded their work. They disenfranchised the Abia Central electorates and we have come to discover that election materials especially the result sheets that they showed were all fake; they were not the real result sheet because they were not carbonized.
“They were brought into Abia Central with the connivance of the adhoc workers and INEC officials and all those that participated in concocting such evil activities towards the good people of Abia Central. Other than that, why would there be an uncarbonized result sheets? The procedures were not followed.
“INEC stated that unit results will be taken to ward collation centre. And these were flagrantly violated. There were no ward collation; but instead, results were taken straight to INEC headquarters. You can imagine in the case of Abia Central all the agents of all the parties that participated in the election including INEC adhoc staff crowed in the INEC headquarters. It was a mad place.
“That gave them the room to do what they did. They didn’t follow the procedure of result collation. That was where they manufactured an uncarbonized result sheets. Agent’s copies were totally blank. Like I said, the materials came in around 2pm which is against the INEC law and this happened in all the six local government areas. Above all, the original result sheet in Isiala Ngwa North and South were given to the People’s Democratic Party in ward two, six nine and four. They (PDP) had the original result sheets which they wrote in people’s houses.
“I feel that the procedure for the conduct of the just concluded National Assembly election in Abia Central Senatorial District election was to say the least, a sham and something that is out of what has always taken place by INEC. I am using this medium to call on INEC and their staff for total investigation as to what happened in Abia Central.
“The results were never announced and even in Umuahia North where election could not hold in some areas and they were scheduled to hold on Tuesday, they came in on Sunday morning when people were still in their churches and paraded themselves to have conducted elections with nobody and at the end of the day, they had bumper votes all for the PDP. This goes to show that there were no proper elections in the six local government areas and it calls for cancellation.
“You cannot rob Abia Central people of the opportunity to choose who they want to represent them. I do not want them to do what I want them to do. I want them to do the right thing. I want them to be unbiased umpire that they should be. In a situation, on the day of the election, a candidate in the race will go and see the INEC Commissioner in the State in his office on the day of the election privately for quite some time; I do not think that, that is proper.”
