Release Abia guber poll results, stakeholders urge INEC

Some indigenes of Abia State, yesterday met in Osisioma, Aba, cand called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to release the results of the April 11 governorship elections. INEC, through its Returning Officer (RO), Professor Benjamin Ozumba, had declared the elections inconclusive in Monday.

Ozumba, while announcing the inconclusiveness of the election after the result collation, said that the margin of votes with which the PDP governorship candidate, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, led his APGA closest rival, Dr Alex Otti, was less than the total number of registered voters in areas where elections did not hold across the state.

He said: “It is apparent that the margin of win in form EC 40G is not in excess of registered voters in the polling units in the areas where elections didn’t hold.”

Leader of the Abia Stakeholders, Elder Emma Adaelu, who also presided over the meeting in his house at Osisioma Aba, said that the ruling that the election was inconclusive, is a ploy to rob Dr  Ikpeazu of his victory. Adaelu warned that the ‘stakeholders’ would not fold their hands and watch the electorate’s mandate annulled.

According to Elder Adaelu, “from booth to booth, local government to local government, election results were made public to the electorate, while all the party agents signed under the watch of security agents.” He, therefore, expressed shock that the election should be declared inconclusive.

Chief Dan Nwankwo described the declaration as travesty of justice,” since “there was no violence recorded anywhere in the state during the election that was adjudged free and fair and results duly signed by all party agents.”

He accused INEC of undue interest in the matter, considering “that all results were received, accepted and publicly announced by INEC from the 17 LGA’s of the state, which results produced “