Ikpeazu wins Abia guber poll, APGA, APC reject result

Abia State Governorship election returning officer and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nigeria Nsukka Professor Benjamin Ozumba this evening declared Dr Okezie Ikpeazu of the People’s Democratic Party as the winner of Saturday’s election.

He announced that Ikpeazu scored 261,127 votes to beat his APC opponents Dr Uche Ogah who scored 99,574 and APGA Dr Alex Otti 64,366 to second and third positions respectively.

According to him, while Ikpeazu won in 11 LGAs, Ogah won in four and Otti in two.

Ogah and Otti immediately addressed a joint press conference rejecting the outcome of the election.

They accused INEC of disregarding the card readers rule.

They said that the results released by INEC were highly tweaked to favour the PDP adding “even where some of us in the opposition had warned, INEC connived with security Agencies to change the results in favour of the PDP”

According to the duo, they were surprised that INEC re-appointed Prof Ozumba who so acted in 2015 as the Returning Officer despite according , to them , that he ( Ozumba ) as the 2015 Returning Officer in the state “created the problems we had in 2015 when he reversed himself by accepting results he had earlier cancelled when he came under pressure and influence of PDP both in the state and at the Federal level.”

Elated by his victory, Ikpeazu extended his hands of fellowships to his opponents that lost in the contest and commended INEC for conducting a peaceful and credible election in the state.

He said that his victory will spur him to fulfil his electioneering pledges and actualize the projects he already set into motion.