Abia: INEC Chairman Denies Issuing Directive at Variance to its Guidelines

•NBA, CSOs, others warn against subverting poll

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja and Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has denied given the Returning Officer for Abia governorship election, Prof. Nnenna Oti any directive at variance with the guidelines of the commission during the collation of results in the state as being portrayed by a blog.

The commission had on Monday suspended further collation of governorship election results in some parts of Abia and Enugu States in order  to review the conduct of the Governorship and State Assembly elections held last Saturday.

An online blog had quoted the Returning Officer as alleging that she was being forced to do the wrong thing.

The blog reported that to the shock and surprise of everyone in the hall, the Returning Officer said the INEC Chairman personally called her and gave her directives on guidelines to follow in ensuring that Abia governorship election results were collated based on some criteria.

But the Chief Press Secretary to INEC Chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi in a statement issued yesterday, said Yakubu had no time gave any direction to Oti.

He said: “The INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu never called the Returning Officer to give her a directive. Rather, the Returning Officer wanted the official communication on the Commission’s decision to suspend the collation of results in Abia State.

“The Chairman then directed that pending the delivery of the hard copies, the soft copies of the Commission’s letter be forwarded immediately to the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Enugu State and the Administrative Secretary of Abia State.

“This is what is now being mischievously interpreted as a directive to the Returning Officer on some phantom criteria at variance with the approved guidelines. There is nothing like that.

“In fact, the content of the letter is basically the same as the Commission’s Press Release dated Monday 20th March 2023 which has since been uploaded to the Commission’s social media platforms and is already in the public domain.”

The commission, therefore, urged the public to disregard the story as fake news.

Meanwhile, Professional groups, rights groups and civil society organsations have risen in condemnation of the lingering delay in concluding the collation and announcement of the March 18 governorship poll results.

The groups in separate press conferences in Umuahia yesterday,  warned INEC against succumbing to the temptation of subverting the will of Abians as expressed in at the poll.

In its reaction to the umpasse, the Abia State chapter of the Nigeria Bar Association(NBA) expressed sadness that the 2023 governorship poll result in the state had been mired in controversy.

Speaking at a news conference in Umuahia, the chairman of  NBA, Umuahia branch, Jasper Ejimofor said the undue delay in announcing the winner of the governorship poll was threatening the unity, peace and stability of Abia.

“We cannot stand aloof at this point in time, especially when it is obvious that there are moves to trample on the democratic rights of Abians and prevent them from having the person they have unanimously voted for as their go up,” he said.

“The delay in declaring the true  winner of the election is causing unnecessary tension in the state, and this tension could snowball into serious crisis and breakdown of law and order,” he added.

Accoring to him, “the overwhelming evidence emanating from INEC indicates that the Labour  Party Governorship candidate, Dr. Alex Otti has won the governorship election with a very wide margin.”

The Umuahia NBA chairman argued that having already collated and declared results of 16 out of 17 local governments with the, “LP candidate is leading with over 90,000” votes hence Obingwa result should not constitute a stumbling block.

“We, therefore, enjoin INEC to declare Alex Otti of Labour Party as the winner of the Governorship election to save the state the avoidable disaster that is looming,” the NBA chairman said.

In its reaction to the poll result  collation saga, the Coalition of Abia Patriots and Youth Leaders called on INEC to act without further delay and return Otti as the winner of the 2023 Abia governorship poll.

The convener of the coalition, Hon Dannie Ubani, who addressed the media in Umuahia said that Abia is being put in tensed suspense due to the desperation of “a clique of power-intoxicated power barons”.

According to him, the power grabbers were bent on “lording  themselves over the rest of Abians by manipulating and joggling election figures at their whims and caprices”.