The candidate of the African Democratic Congress for the just concluded Imo State House of Assembly poll, Engr. Chima Akuzie has rejected the result that produced Hon. Sam Osuji as the winner of the poll, saying that ‘no real election took place at the Constitutency’.
Akuzie described what transpired during the election as brazen violation of the 2022 Electoral Act, as amended and rape of democracy.
He further appreciated his people for coming out in mass to vote for him, and vowed to drag the APC and the electoral umpire to court in order to recover the stollen mandate they have given to him.
The Imo State House of Assembly election held on Saturday, March 18, was adjudged as the worst in the political history of the state.
Contrary to the expectation of the electorate that their votes would count, the election was punctuated with all manner of malpractices such as ballot box snatching, vote-buying and intimidation of voters across the state by the All Progressives Congress (APC)
The poll in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area witnessed unprecedented snatching of ballot boxes, intimidation of voters, beating of party agents and alteration of result sheets.
It was authoritatively gathered that voting was going on peacefully in various polling units when some APC members, accompanied by armed security personnel, stormed several polling units, disrupted the process and made away with ballot boxes.
It was learnt that the ugly development which commenced at about 1:00 pm was the Plan B of the APC to deliver its candidate in the area, upon realizing that vote buying option had failed.
One of the party’s leaders in the area disclosed that APC distributed the sum of 700 US dollars per polling booth in addition to an undisclosed amount of money in local currency to prosecute the election.
According to him, while 400 US dollars was earmarked for vote buying, electoral officials got 100 US dollars each for cooperation with the ruling party.
In most of the polling units, some APC leaders were seen thumb printing ballot papers for others after issuing death threats to scare accredited voters away.
In Amaraku Ward, which recorded low turnout of voters, ballot boxes were snatched simultaneously in almost all the polling units and results allegedly manipulated in favour of a particular candidate.
In Ugiri/ Oka Ward, the story was the same as booth agents of other political parties were threatened, bullied and beaten up mercilessly.
In Obollo Ward, election was disrupted in many booths and ballot boxes carted away.
Ogbor Ward was not left out as the ADC polling unit agent was beaten to stupor at booth 004, Umuoparaire Hall, when he tried to stop the APC supporters from carrying away the ballot box and INEC adhoc staff to an unknown destination without result being uploaded.
The young man who gave his name as Chidubem Ogombu was receiving treatment at a hospital at the time of filling this report.
It was further gathered that upon successfully snatching ballot boxes mainly from the strongholds of the ADC candidate, the APC supporters hurriedly moved the electoral materials and INEC staff to the local government headquarters, Umuelemai, where party agents were denied participation in the collation process.
At Umuelemai, security agents working in conjunction with the ruling party, manhandled the ADC local government area agent, Bonaventure Nwaigwe when he attempted to have his way into the collation centre.
