PDP Demands Immediate Declaration Of Isu Result

By Onyinyechi Nwankwo…

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Imo State, has called on INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to order the immediate declaration of the result for Isu State Constituency election, saying the party incontrovertibly won the election in the area.

This demand followed the situation in which the Imo INEC has refused to declare the Isu state constituency results of March 18, 2023.

Addressing newsmen on Wednesday at its state Secretariat in Owerri through the party Publicity Secretary, Collins Opurozor, the party made it clear that the PDP candidate, Hon. Modestus Abazie Osakwe, won the Isu election, pulling a total of 5,551 from six electoral wards to defeat the APC candidate who scored 4,954.

Opurozor noted 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 them and available at the INEC office, Owerri.

“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.

“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!

“It is also necessary to inform Nigerians 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”

He regretted that many electoral malpractices marred the March 18th House of Assembly elections in the state, where some top INEC officials, security agencies and the amorphous Ebubeagu Militia played the role of aiding and abetting the mind-boggling crime perpetrated by the rulling party in Imo against the Nigerian state.

The party therefore urged INEC to 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.

It also reiterated 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.