PDP calls for cancellation of Imo State bye-election results
Confusion has trailed the online video which declared the All Progressives Congress, APC, Blyden Amajirionwu, winner of the Imo State bye-election for the Ngor Okpala State Constituency last Saturday.
It stated that the APC got 9,248 votes to floor Jeff Nwachukwu of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who scored 7,071 votes.
A video of the returning officer, a professor of Drama and Critical Theory from Alex Ekwueme Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ebonyi State, Amen Dennis Akor, claimed the results were declared at Umuneke in Ngor Okpala Local Government Area, around 3 am on Sunday.
According to Akor, “The APC candidate polled 9, 248 to defeat Jeff Nwachukwu of the PDP who polled 7, 071 votes. The total registered voters across the 11 existing electoral wards in the area was 94,060, and the total number of accredited voters was 18, 083. Polling commenced as early as 8:30a.m and ended at about 2:30 p.m. All accredited voters with Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) cast their votes.
“The election results were published, displayed and transmitted electronically using the forms EC60E and EC8A through the INEC’s portal. The number of total votes cast was 17, 862 and the total number of valid votes was 17, 280 with rejected votes being 582.
“No fewer than eleven registered political parties participated in the election. The parties included: the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); All Progressives Congress (APC); All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA); the African Democratic Congress (ADC); and Labour Party (LP).
“Others were the Young Progressives Party (YPP); Zenith Labour Party (ZLP); National Rescue Movement (NRM); New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP); Allied People’s Movement (APM); Action Democratic Party (ADP) ; and the Social Democratic Party (SDP),” he said.
Reacting, the state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Imo State chapter, Charles Ugwu, has called for “Outright cancellation of the Saturday, February 26, 2022 bye-election in Ngor Okpala as any outcome from such a barbaric invasion and warfare will only reflect the manipulations of Hope Uzodimma and his band of electoral fraudsters and not the will of Ngor Okpala people.
“We call on INEC to order an immediate recount of all the materials and votes and reconcile them with the BVAS data. We further call on INEC to direct its HOD Ops, Fidelis Uguru to ensure the security and safety of all the materials and data deployed in the Ngor Okpala bye-election to ensure a thorough recount as any story of the loss of material or destruction of materials will prove ongoing suspicions of compromise by the commission.
“We call on INEC to take steps to immediately move for the arrest and prosecution of all those implicated in this heist as contained in the Electoral Act and save our democracy both within and outside the state. This election is seriously compromised in every detail. We reiterate our call for a total cancellation.”
