Imo guber: INEC urged to declare Ihedioha winner

The Emeka Ihedioha Campaign Organisation has said available reports from its field agents across Imo State clearly put its candidate in the lead and accordingly called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to de­clare him winner of the governorship election conducted on April 11, 2015.The organisation, in a statement by its Director-General, Chief Chris Okewu­lonu, cited several irregularities and malpractices that bedeviled the election in several strongholds of its candidate and unfairly increased the chances of the opposition candidate, Rochas Okorocha of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The statement alleged collusion be­tween the INEC Returning Officer and the APC in reducing its votes collated and declared at the Oru East and Ezinihitte Local Government Areas where Ihedioha was posting an unassailable lead in the election.

Specifically, the Ihedioha Campaign Organisation asked INEC to “restore the total scores of candidates in the result of Ezinihitte LGA, as collated at the LGA collation centre and transmitted to the state INEC headquarters; repudiate, dis­countenance and void the result of the 4 (four) wards in Oru East LGA, which the Collation Officer repudiated; and restore the collated result of the outstanding six wards of Oru East.”

According to the statement: “Before the election, we had received information that Owelle Rochas Okorocha did not want a free and fair election to hold in the state since it certainly would not be in his favour, given the revelations to the effect that he had inordinately appropriated large chunks of the state’s resources for himself and members of his family while salaries and emoluments of workers, etc. remained unattended to.

“We also received information that to forestall his failure at the polls, Rochas Okorocha and his apparatchik were plan­ning to use thugs, some in police and military uniforms, to rig and/or disrupt the electoral process in selected areas. We duly shared this information with the relevant authorities. Unfortunately, the information was not given the attention it deserved,” the organisation said.