Abia South LP senatorial contender rejects Abaribe's victory

Mr Chinedu Onyeizu, Labour Party’s (LP) senatorial candidate for Abia South district, has rejected result declaring Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe (PDP) as the winner of the Feb. 25 election.

Onyeizu told newsmen in Aba, Abia on Wednesday that INEC made a mistake by awarding Abaribe more votes than he got as could be seen in INEC’s records.

He expressed shock that Prof. Georgina Ugwuanyi, the Returning Officer changed her mind concerning her earlier announcement that the election was inconclusive.

Onyeizu said that in spite of the irregularities INEC talked about in some polling units, he was leading Abaribe with 10,000 votes before the Returning Officer declared the election inconclusive.

He said it was shocking and remained an electoral mystery how INEC reduced his scores to 43,903 votes and inflated Abaribe’s to 49,693 from about 38,000 when Abaribe ought to be trailing him.

He condemned Abaribe’s lawless declaration of himself as winner before INEC pronounced him winner, and said that he rejected the results and would contest it to the end.

The LP candidate noted that his opponents had shown that they were afraid of the rescheduled election seeing that he, Onyeizu was on ground and that the people had chosen LP in all their votes.

“There were issues with a lot of the polling units in Aba North, Aba South and Obingwa local government areas based on the number of registered voters and the number of actual votes cast.

“So it was obvious that the election was inconclusive and the Returning Officer made a statement two days ago concerning that.

“She stated that the election results were inconclusive as a result of the irregularities experienced.

“We were very optimistic that INEC would make public the new date for the rescheduled elections but instead, it turned around to declare results,’’ Onyeizu said.

He called on INEC to admit the mistake and announce him the winner of the election.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that on Tuesday morning, the INEC’s Returning Officer had announced before party agents that the election was inconclusive and would be rescheduled.

On Tuesday evening, however, she returned to declare the winner in an election earlier declared inconclusive stating that she got calls from Abuja INEC to declare the results without a rescheduled election.