Interim National Chairman, All Progressive Congress, Chief Bisi Akande The All Progressives Congress on Thursday petitioned the Indedependent National Electoral Commission over the irregularities that characterised last Saturday governorship election in Anambra State. In the petition, the APC demanded that the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukogu, should be transferred, arrested and then prosecuted for allegedly ruining the election. The petition was read by the Interim National Chairman of the party, Chief Bisi Akande, at a news conference where he also accused INEC of deception and conspiring with the Presidential Villa as well as the Peoples Democratic Party. The APC, in the petition signed by Akande and its Interim National Secretary, Tijjani Tumsah, advised that a new REC be appointed to supervise a fresh governorship election in the state. It said that the fresh election, not supplementary poll; the transfer, arrest and trial of Onukogu were the best ways to rebuild the INEC and restore the integrity of the electoral process. The APC also told INEC to discontinue all arrangements for the supplementary election and ensure that no candidate for the November 16 controversial poll was returned as winner. The petition reads in part, “Our demands are predicated on the serious irregularities and non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended which characterised the conduct of the said election. “To proceed with the election as proposed by INEC will amount to a gruesome assault on the right of the people of Anambra State to elect a governor of their choice and legitimising of a grave travesty of the electoral process as witnessed during the November 16, 2013 governorship election.” Expatiating on the reasons for its call for the election’s cancellation, the party alleged that the voter register used for the election was tainted to such an extent that many voters, especially those in the stronghold of its candidate, Senator Chris Ngige, were disenfranchised. It claimed that the register was padded with minors and multiple registrants in the LGAs controlled by the All Progressives Grand Alliance. The party also contended that results were brought in without being publicly announced by the LGA Collation Officers and that election materials were not distributed in a timely manner in many polling units, thus affecting the timely commencement of accreditation and voting. It added that the commission failed to deploy election officials in sufficient numbers to several polling units where some election officials were recruited and deployed without any form of training. Another reason cited by the APC for demanding the cancellation of the poll was that officials of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka , were recruited as Supervisory Presiding Officers by Onukaogu, contrary to INEC’s directive that nobody from the institution should be used for the exercise since APGA’s Deputy governorship candidate, Dr. Nkem Okeke, was a Senior Lecturer in the university. The APC also used the petition to debunk claims by INEC that only the courts had the power to cancel the election. It said, “A correct reading of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended is to the effect that INEC cannot reverse itself where a candidate in the election has been returned as a winner. This has not been done. Indeed, inec had on November 18, 2013 declared the election as ‘inconclusive’.’’ “The commission is duly empowered to reject the purported results as announced. It is instructive that it is the prior cancellation of results by the commission that has led to the affected areas being included in the areas for which the ‘supplementary election’ is to be held.’’ Fielding questions from journalists, Akande alleged that INEC deceived the APC by using a voter register that was different from the one it submitted to the APC leadership for the controversial election. He however said that at the appropriate time, INEC would be forced to produce the register it used for the poll. Akande, a former governor of Osun State, said, “We don’t have the voter register used for the election. “We saw the first voter register and the second one, but the third one, which was used for the election, was not given to us. It was an orchestrated plan to disfranchise the people of Anambra State.” With this, Akande said the electoral body was no longer credible, adding that it had shown its bias against the opposition in several ways. He said that it was not known to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, Congress for Progressive Change and the All Nigeria Peoples Party, that while they were trying to merge , INEC was also merging (conspiring) with the Peoples Democratic Party and the Presidential Villa. “The INEC we have now is INEC for the Villa and the PDP. INEC is no longer credible.” Asked about what the party would do if the commission went ahead with the supplementary election, the APC Interim Chairman replied, “We are democrats. As a political party, we will go to court. “But I don’t know what the people of Anambra State will do. All I know is that they are angry already.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 06:19:15 +0000
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