The All Progressives Congress, APC, has formally written a letter to the Chairman of the National Electoral Commission, INEC, Attahiru Jega, demanding the outright cancellation of the November 16 governorship election held in Anambra State.
The APC National Chairman, Bisi Akande, who addressed the media at the new national headquarters of the party in Abuja, said their request followed plans by INEC to conduct supplementary election in 210 polling units in 16 local government areas of the state.
Mr. Akande said the APC was also demanding that no candidate should be returned as the winner of the November 16 election until a fresh one was held.
He hinged the party’s demand on the irregularities and non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended, which, he said, characterised the conduct of the election.
The APC Chairman said that INEC proceeding with the election would amount to a gruesome assault on the right of the people of Anambra State to elect a governor of their choice, and would also be interpreted as a legitimisation of a grave travesty of the electoral process.
Three different voters register
Mr. Akande stated that the integrity of an election was premised on an unassailable voters’ register, adding that INEC basically tainted the election by providing three different registers in the build up to the election.
He said that about a month to the election, INEC gave all parties an electronic copy of the voters’ register; however, barely two days to the election, the commission again gave the parties another voters’ register, which was different from the one given a month earlier.
“Surprisingly, the voters’ register that was eventually used in the election is also different from the two given to us earlier,” he said.
Mr. Akande pointed out that even the name of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Tony Nwoye, and some of his relatives, which were in the first two voters’ register, were missing in the one used for the election.
The APC chairman said the register used was so tainted that many voters were disenfranchised, especially those in the stronghold of the APC candidate, Chris Ngige. Meanwhile, according to Mr. Akande, the registers used in local governments controlled by the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA were padded with minors and multiple registrants.
He lamented that these actions were contrary to the assurances given by Mr. Jega and the Director of ICT Department of INEC, Mr. Nwafor, at a meeting held with relevant party officials on November 13, in Awka.
Mr. Akande said a preliminary observation by his party showed that the election was seriously flawed in four Local Government Areas. He added that INEC itself not only agreed that these irregularities occurred, but that it widened the scope of the areas where electoral malpractices and irregularities occurred to 16 Local Government Areas and 210 polling units, with 113,113 registered voters, thereby affecting a substantial part of the election.
The party chairman noted that in spite of all these irregularities, INEC still went ahead to conduct another election in Obosi on a Sunday, without any legal notice to the parties and the voters in the constituency. He said that Sunday’s election was also an affront to the religious sensibilities of the predominantly Christian population in the area.
Election officials recruited at election venues
The APC Chairman said apart from the fact that materials were not distributed on time to many polling units, the election was also characterised by gross incompetence on the part of the commission. He added that election observers had widely reported that officials were recruited at the venue and deployed without any form of training.
“As a matter of fact, students were recruited as presiding officers and polling assistants, thus, further compromising the electoral process,” Mr. Akande alleged.
He stated that even more worrisome was that students and staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Unizik, Awka were recruited as Supervisory Presiding Officers, SPOs, by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Chukwuemeka Onukaogu, which, Mr. Akande noted, was contrary to INEC’s directive. The Commission had directed that staff of the school should not be used in the election since the APGA Deputy Governorship Candidate, Nkem Okeke, was a Senior Lecturer with the University prior to his candidature.
Mr. Akande recalled that, during the 2011 Imo State election, Viola Onwuliri, a lecturer with the Federal University of Technology Owerri at the time, contested the election as a Deputy Governorship candidate, and, on the same basis and principle of guaranteeing the integrity of the electoral process, no staff of FUTO was engaged as an INEC ad hoc staff for the election.
REC should be removed
Mr. Akande complained that since the transfer of Mr. Onukaogu as the Resident Electoral Commissioner to Anambra State, Mr. Onuakogu had demonstrated an undisguised and deep seated bias and animosity against the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, and its candidate and leader in Anambra, Chris Ngige.
He said, the REC had now transferred this hatred to the APC, and it had been manifested in the malicious cancellation of an election won by the party, and a petition to the ICPC against some members of the party after the 2011 Legislative Houses election.
Mr. Akande said most of the controversial results announced by the REC in 2011 against the ACN were overturned by the courts, which rebuked the REC. He pointed out that Mr. Ngige had brought these issues to the attention of Mr. Jega at a meeting in Awka prior to the election.
“Despite calls by the party that the REC be transferred out of Anambra State, the Commission, for reasons that have now manifested in this election, has retained him for his hatchet job against the party and its candidate, for the benefit of Anambra State governor and his party, APGA,” Mr. Akande said.
Demands
The APC Chairman demanded that INEC suspend the proposed supplementary election and then, cancel the entire election held on Saturday.
He asked that the Commission conduct a fresh election in Anambra State, while the current REC, Mr. Onukaogu, be transferred out of the state and a new REC appointed to superintend the fresh election.
The party also demanded that Mr. Onukaogu be arrested and prosecuted alongside members of ‘his syndicate’ involved in the electoral fraud that, according to it, had brought odium and ridicule to Nigerians in the eyes of the world.
Mr. Akande threatened that if the electoral umpire failed to honour its request, the APC would go to court.
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