Okey Sampson, Aba
The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates for Abia Central and Aba South senatorial districts, in the February 23 National Assembly election, Senator Nkechi Nwogu and Chief Marc Wabara, have said the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidates have not been and were never declared winners by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The PDP senatorial candidate for Abia Central is immediate past governor of the state, Chief Theodore Orji while that of Abia South is Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe.
Speaking with newsmen in her Aba home, senator Nwogu said INEC has not made any formal declaration of result, in respect of the election; as it concerns Abia Central.
“I have not been formally informed of the outcome of the election. I heard as rumour that the candidate of PDP was announced winner. The purported result is a concocted one; it is fake and not genuine,” she insisted.
Senator Nwogu urged the public to disregard the said result which she reiterated did not emanate from INEC.
She also said it would be absurd of INEC to announce any result from the senatorial district when “the result sheets they brought into Abia Central were fake; they were not original result sheets. Procedures were not followed; results were not collated at the ward collation centres but were taken to local government headquarters where the figures were manipulated.”
Senator Nwogu alleged that in some places in Umuahia, where election could not hold that Saturday, INEC shifted it till Tuesday and up till when she was speaking, election in the affected areas had not been conducted and wondered how results of an election that had not been fully conducted would be announced.
“In Osisioma, my home local government, no materials came until 2.00pm and, by 3.00pm, INEC staff caused voting to stop, yet, they compiled when people did not vote”.
She took a swipe at the Resident Electoral Commissioner “for meeting with the candidate of the PDP, Chief Orji, while he refused to give the same opportunity to candidates of other political parties.” The former senator called on INEC to cancel and fix a new date for election in Aba Central, and added that if actually INEC had announced the result, she has rejected and would challenge it in court.
In a related development, Wabara said it was wrong for anybody to allude that Abaribe has been declared winner of the February 23 election.
Wabara alleged that massive rigging in a local government in the district made INEC to cancel the poll in that local government.