The
All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned that it will not accept the
results of Saturday’s governorship election in Anambra state if voting
does not take place in all local governments, especially in the party’s
strongholds of Idemili North and South as well as Akwa South.
In a
statement issued in Lagos on Saturday by its Interim National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also condemned INEC for its
apparently-contrived logistic nightmare that has left thousands of
voters unable to exercise their franchise, and demanded the immediate
removal of the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Anambra, Prof.
Chukwuemeka Onukogu.
APC said it was totally astonished to learn
that INEC has confirmed that materials meant for Idemili North Local
Government, which has 180,000 voters, have been hijacked, without saying
who hijacked the ballot papers and why, and without explaining why the
materials meant for APGA and PDP strongholds were not
hijacked.
The
party said equally astonishing is the fact that the voter’s registers
for Idemili South, the direct council of the APC candidate, Dr. Chris
Ngige, did not contain the names of voters in the local government,
despite the assurances
by INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega.
”Before
the election, political parties were given voters registers that
largely contained the names of most voters. However, about four days to
the election, Prof Jega said at an interactive stakeholders forum that
there were problems with the registers, which would be rectified before
the election.
”However, when the supposedly-corrected registers
were brought back, most of the authentic names in them have disappeared,
without explanation,” it said.
APC said it also complained about
the fact that the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Anambra, Prof
Onukogu, was very partial and unprofessional when he conducted the 2011
election,
”In 2011, when Prof. Onukogu conducted the general
elections in the state, he was very partial. During the Onitsha South 2
House of Assembly constituency and Idemili South House of Assembly
polls, he declared the results of both inconclusive, only for him to
announce the results at 12 midnight. After we challenged the results in
court and a rerun was ordered, we won both constituencies.
”We
subsequently petitioned INEC and the Commission assured us that the same
person will not be allowed to conduct subsequent election. Alas, he was
left in place to do another damage to INEC as an institution through
his glaring incompetence and partiality, which have seriously affected
the credibility of this governorship election,” the party said.