Joe Effiong, Uyo
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected the governorship and the House of Assembly elections in Akwa Ibom State following its poor performance.
The party was able to win only one House of Assembly seat which is Godswill Akpabio’s Essien Udim state constituency while the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) won the rest 25 seats.
Similarly, in the governorship election, Gov Udom Gabriel Emmanuel contesting on the platform of PDP, also trounced his APC opponent, Mr Nsima Ekere, with 519,712 against Ekere’s 171, 778, leaving a wide margin of 347,734 votes.
Consequently, the party’s top brass led by its state chairman, Mr Ini Okopido, in company with the Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly (Senate) Matters, Sen Ita Enang, the former Minister of Petroleum, Chief Don Etiebet, and many others, addressed a press conference in Uyo, in which they rejected the election results describing it as “sham and fictitious.”
Okopido who anchored the press conference blamed the party’s electoral woes on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), especially the state REC, Mr Mike Igini.
“Recall gentlemen of the press that the APC in the state had maintained its lack of confidence in the electoral umpire, INEC that was manifestly corrupt, unashamedly hobnobbing with the PDP and criminally tied as an appendage of the Akwa Ibom State government in the election processes. We had told the world that INEC in Akwa Ibom State has no credibility and integrity to deliver free, fair and credible elections to the people of our state. Today our party has been vindicated.
“The commission, in collusion with the PDP, committed an electoral coup against the people of Akwa Ibom State by publishing and announcing such results that have no bearing with the results as counted and announced at the various units in the state. INEC, partnering the PDP simply changed the figures that were clearly at variance with the results counted and announced at the polling units in the state as obtained by our agents at the units,” the party said.
“The result of the governorship and state House of Assembly elections in the state, as obtained from our agents across the state, clearly shows that the All Progressives Congress won in 26 out of the 31 local government areas of the state. The result showed a remarkable closeness in the number of votes polled by each of the two major political parties.
“That closeness was even possible because of the number of underhand tactics of the PDP, multiple voting, vote buying, deployment of violence of unprecedented dimension, arson and killings and in most areas snatching of ballot boxes, and manifest manipulation and non-use of the card reader machines to achieve their pre-determined result. Despite all these, Akwa Ibom people still went ahead to reject the PDP and voted massively for the APC, thus the overwhelming victory they gave to the APC.”