From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Senate Chief Whip and senator representing Abia North district, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu and Abia State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have said they would not participate in unreliable online polls in the state.
The Orji Uzor Kalu Campaign Organisation, in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Sunny Idika and entitled: “Count Senator Orji Uzor Kalu out of unreliable opinion polls” said the Abia North senator was confident of winning the 2023 election overwhelmingly.
While urging eligible voters to judge candidates based on performance, track record, capacity, and competency, the campaign organisation noted that Kalu’s scorecard so far has shown ability and dexterity in law-making, legislative advocacy, and proficiency in building bi-partisan alliances.
“The Chief Whip of the Senate, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu’s portrait of legislative excellence has left no one in doubt of his parliamentary capabilities and expertise. We are excited and impressed by the compliments, accolades, and feedback from stakeholders and people of Abia North senatorial district and their common consensus of re-electing him in 2023.
“Even though we are winning with a wide margin in one of their unreliable polls from result shown so far, it is the electorate, who will determine the fate of candidates of political parties at the polls physically when the time comes and not unreliable online polls promoted by politicians without achievements to campaign with.
“We sympathise with those without scorecards, especially the candidate that has been dazed by the outcome of the 2019 polls. This candidate, lately, has been working very hard to deceive the public that it has turned a new leaf following its removal in 2019, but we know that a leopard will never change its skin— and we won’t participate in any unreliable online polls with him and others,” the statement said.
In the same vein, Abia chapter of the PDP said it would not be involved in a skewed online polls to determine the acceptability of candidates in the election.
Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, Abraham Amah, in a statement said the poll which allowed a single user to vote several times, using multiple browsers was laughable and fraudulent, and not representative of a true and accurate sampling of the population for such a serious exercise, and was not acceptable by any stretch of imagination.
“Above all, our dependable intelligence has confirmed that the platform was created by a paid agent of a political party without any visible followership across the 17 local government areas of Abia State and is intended to deceive the voting public and shore up its non-existent popularity.”
The PDP said any poll not supervised by KPMG, Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young and that lacked the support INEC should not be taken seriously by any sensible person.