By Ikenna Orioha
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has been told to declare the PDP candidate for Isu State Constituency, Hon. Modestus Abazie Osakwe, winner of the 18 March 2023 election.
The party said its candidate clearly won the poll according to INEC available records of the results pasted on its viewing portal.
Briefing journalists through its Publicity Secretary, Collins Oprurozor, at its Secretariat, Owerri, on Wednesday, the PDP called on INEC to follow the rules of INEC and the Electoral Act and do the needful in order to safeguard democracy.
While noting that the PDP candidate won the election cleanly despite fraud allegedly perpetrated by the APC led administration, Oprurozor implored the Inspector General of Police to investigate the role of Imo Police in the election and sanction the Command’s Commissioner who it accused for being a willing tool in the hands of ill and desperate politicians to scuttle democracy.
The party also asked the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, to compel the Imo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Sylvia Agu, to declare the PDP candidate winner of the Isu Assembly election in the interest of justice, fairness and democracy.
He affirmed that “of the 123 polling units in Isu LGA, 122 results have been successfully uploaded on the iREV, representing 99.19% of the total results. The only result which was not transmitted came from Ekwe Ward 1, Booth 16, where APC thugs had made away with the BVAS. Nevertheless, the result has been ready with us and available at the INEC Office, Owerri”.
Opruozor maintained that “in four other polling units where elections were disrupted by thugs, because of the imminent loss of APC, the INEC Forms, EC 40 G, were duly signed by the POs, SPOs and the EO. In keeping with the provisions of the Electoral Act and the INEC Guidelines, the possibility of a rerun in those areas has been effectively foreclosed. This position has also been publicly affirmed by INEC”.
The party stated that the “total results from the eleven electoral wards in Isu LGA as now fully published on the INEC Result Viewing Portal show that the PDP candidate, Hon. Modestus Abazie Osakwe, polled a total of 5,551 and won in six electoral wards to defeat the APC candidate who scored 4,954. You can quickly visit the iREV to confirm this.
“It becomes totally unacceptable that INEC in Imo State has refused to announce the result and declare our candidate winner of the election. Instead, top officials of the Commission have chosen to yield to the whims and caprices of the APC regime in the state to sit on the victory of our party in the bid to devise ways to finally upturn it. Just last week, a fresh collation was done at the INEC Headquarters in Owerri and the officials proceeded to Isu for the declaration of the result. On their way, they got a call from Owerri to discontinue with the process, citing orders from above. By this act, the APC-led regime in Imo is now obviously bent on setting the state on fire”.
The PDP alleged that “both the INEC Returning Officer and some other officials involved in the Isu State Constituency election have severally been invited, harassed and intimidated by the police with a view to making them upturn the result in favour of the failed APC. This is how regrettably partisan the police has become. Our party, therefore, calls on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to order the immediate declaration of the result for Isu State Constituency election in Imo State which was won by the PDP.
“Also, the Commission should launch painstaking investigation into the activities of its personnel in Imo and their roles in the widespread electoral fraud that defiled the 2023 elections at all levels in the State. Imo PDP reiterates its call on the Inspector General of Police to beam his searchlight on the Imo State Police Command to weed out the corrupt elements who have become willing tools for the enforcement of electoral crimes and implementation of sundry other dictatorial and fascist political agenda of the Senator Hope Uzodinma-led APC regime in the State”, Oprurozor added.