Intrigues of inconclusive Abia Guber election
Posted by admin | 9 years ago | 3,029 times
The governorship and state house of assembly elections in Abia State which no winner was declared witnessed some intriguing moments at the collation of results, till the final announcement. At the Independent National Electoral Commission headquarters in Umuahia,where the collation took place, the political parties had their agents represented as witness to the collation.
The election keenly contested by two major parties in the state, the People's Democratic Party and the All Progressives Grand Alliance, which had Okezie Ikpeazu and Alex Otti as candidates, witnessed alot of intriguing moments especially at the collation of results from local governments. The drama of the collation like what played out at the national level,when the PDP agent and former minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe interrupted the announcements with allegation that the chairman of INEC was partial, this time, it was the All Progressives Grand Alliance party agent, Emmanuel Chikwe Ahamdi who raised objections during the announcement of the result from Osisioma Local Government Area,alleging that elections did not hold in the local government. This led to the cancellation of three local governments of Osisioma, Obingwa and Isiala Ngwa North, which was later resolved by the Returning Officer,Prof. Benjamin Ozumba and collation continued. It was not the end,as more contest played out at the collation of almost all the results from Abia South.
The APGA party agent described as the Abia version of "Orubebe", was countered by the PDP agent Solomon Ogunji who debunked the allegations from the opposition. The first day of the collation, which ran into the night was obstructed by the APGA agent who snatched the result sheet from the collation officer of Obingwa Local Government , bringing the exercise to an abrupt end. However,the second day also witnessed tensed moments,following the collation from Ohafia Local Government which was to be announced after observers and journalists waited for about four hours. Then came the moment everyone was waiting for, the announcement of results. The Returning Officer Prof. Benjamin Ozumba, after stating the guidelines for announcement of the winner, made the party agents to sign the result sheet and each given a copy. Finally, the moment for the verdict which was suspense filled had the Returning Officer say "since the number of void votes was far less than the areas cancelled, the verdict is clear, there is no declared winner".
The result is as follows - PDP - 248,459 APGA - 165,406
REJECTED VOTES - 8893
MARGIN OF LED - 83053
CANCELLED AREAS - 179,224
At the time of filing this report, the Independent National Electoral Commission,did not make any pronouncement on a possible election re-run exercise.
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