Governor Okezi Ekpethu opposed the declaration of Inyinaya Abribe as the winner of the upper house elections in Abia South.
On Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission announced that the incumbent deputy had won by 49,693 votes.
Shinido Onyezu, the Workers’ Party candidate, received 43,903 votes, while Ikpezu of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, received 28,422 votes.
Return Officer Professor Georgina Ogwane also announced that LP’s Emika Nnamani won the Aba South and North federal constituency with 35,502 votes.
On Wednesday, the governor said the Independent National Electoral Commission should not have declared his rival in the Progressive Grand Alliance, the APGA, the winner.
He asked why an announcement was made after the commission confirmed that polling had not been conducted in 108 polling units in Obengwa, South Abia and North Abia.
The affected units have a cumulative 200,000 voters, more than the votes of all parties, said Ikpetho, through the PDP’s aggregation agent Charles Esono.
The governor claimed that more than 50,000 HDP supporters were unable to vote due to the unavailability/delayed arrival of electoral materials to the district’s local government areas.
Esono noted that the initial problem was not knowing when the results announced by the electoral ruling for 5 LLAs would be presented.
We’d be able to check. There were many distortions on the score from Aba South LGA, and they also canceled many units in Aba South.
“a. Georgina Ogwanye, at the assembly center at Constitution Crescent Primary School, Aba, declared the election inconclusive.
This was because a large number of polling units, totaling 108 units, had issues that required rescheduling for the election.
“I told her that she should not announce any winner because of the margin of progress between the first and second candidates.
Abaribe had a lead of 6,000 votes. The returning officer agreed with the party agents that no one should be declared a winner because of the margin of progress.
“We were shocked that Professor Ogwani later returned to the assembly center in the afternoon and declared a winner, citing orders from above,” said Esono.
The contest was by no means easy for Ikpeazu, part of the G5 led by Governor Nyesom Wike, who had to contend with Abaribe’s support base and LP wave due to Peter Obi’s popularity.
The violent politician, Abaribe in January 2020 called for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari during a Senate debate on the wave of insecurity in Nigeria.
lkpeazu criticized the IEC after losing the Abia South elections to Aparibi
