From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The Senate Chief Whip and senator representing Abia North senatotrial district, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu and Abia State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), have said they will not participate in unreliable online polls in the state ahead of the 2023 general elections.
In a statement signed by its spokesperson, Sunny Idika and titled “Count Senator Orji Uzor Kalu out of unreliable opinion polls“, the Orji Uzor Kalu Campaign Organization said the Abia North Senator was confident of winning the 2023 Abia North senatorial election overwhelmingly.
While urging eligible voters to judge candidates based on performance, track record, capacity, and competency, the Campaign Organization 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 statement read in part: “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 has said it will not be involved in a skewed online polls to determine acceptability of candidates in the 2023 general election.
In a statement signed by Hon. Abraham Amah, Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, the party noted that the poll which allows a single user to vote several times, using multiple browsers is not only laughable and fraudulent but also not representative of a true and accurate sampling population for such a serious exercise and therefore is 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.
“For the purposes of clarity, we take this opportunity to educate the impostors, those behind the dastardly act and the unsuspecting public that any poll that is not supervised by the Big Four namely; KPMG, Deloitte, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young and in this instance, without the backing of the election umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as the case may be, is simply a baseless and unsatisfactory poll and should not be taken seriously by any sensible person”.
While calling on her candidates at all levels to continue to engage the electorates in their various constituencies constructively, the party urged the people of the state to disregard the machinations of some politicians and their collaborators who it said want to deceive the unsuspecting public for their selfish ends.
