The Anambra state gubernatorial candidate of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Andy Uba has rejected the result of the Anambra governorship election held on November 6, 2021.
In a press statement, the spokesperson of the Andy Uba Campaign Organization, Mr. Jerry Ugokwe, said they will follow the law to challenge the election results because it does not reflect the wishes of the Anambra people.
The Anambra State in Southeast Nigeria held its governorship election where the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Professor Charles Soludo won with 112,229 followed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP candidate, Valentine Ozigbo who polled 53,807. The APC candidate, Senator Uba came third with 43,285 votes.
The reaction from Senator Uba’s camp is coming shortly after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC announced its intent to issue a Certificate of Return to the APGA Candidate, Professor Soludo.
Widespread irregularities
Mr Ugokwe alleged that the election was marred with widespread irregularities.
“In polling units where the Biometric Voters’ Accreditation System malfunctioned, INEC went ahead to conduct the elections manually. There were numerous cases where votes announced by INEC exceeded the number of accredited voters in polling units.
“Another clear manifestation of collusion between the Obiano Administration and INEC was the publishing of results on the Social Media handles of APGA even before official announcement by INEC. Yet mysteriously, the votes announced in advance by APGA always corresponded correctly with the official figures released by INEC.
“We have noted that starting from the appointment of INEC Adhoc staff, who mostly came from Calabar, to the distribution of electoral materials and the retention of the Resident Electoral Commissioner, who supervised the second term election of Governor Obiano, it was crystal clear that the game plan was to overturn the popular wishes of the people of Anambra State in the biggest electoral heist of all time in Nigeria’s political history,” he said.
Impossible for APGA to win
While referring back to the high number of former APGA members including law makers that left APGA for the APC before the governorship election, Mr. Ugokwe noted that it was impossible for APGA to win when it didn’t have strong leaders to pull in their required number of votes.
“It is surprising that APGA that lost almost 80% of its stalwarts through defection to the APC before the election came out ‘victorious’. A sitting APGA Deputy Governor, seven members of the House of Representatives, 10 members of the Anambra State House of Assembly, the APGA party’s member of Board of Trustees, many serving SA’s, SSA’s, in addition to a serving PDP Senator all defected to the APC very timely before the election, yet APGA emerged ‘victorious’. This is quite ridiculous!
“From all indications, the only people remaining in APGA at the time of the election were Governor Obiano and his household and a few staff of the Government House as well as Professor Soludo and his household but majority of the electorates in Anambra State have moved to the APC.”
It adds that there was definitely no way the carcass of APGA could have defeated the APC without the active collusion and manipulation by INEC and the Obiano Administration.
Lateefah Ibrahim
