‘How I Was Forced To Announce Okorocha Winner Of Senate Seat’ – INEC REC

How I was forced to announce Okorocha winner of Senate seat – INEC Returning Officer

Sunday
night’s melodrama snowballed into a full-blown controversy Monday
morning when the returning officer for Imo West Senatorial District,
Innocent Ibeabuchi, said he was “detained at the centre for days.”

He said this while announcing the results of the senatorial election for the zone.

Before
reeling out figures at the district collation centre in the Independent
Electoral Commission (INEC) Office in Orlu, Mr Ibeabuchi, a professor,
said he was being held “under duress” to announce the results.

“My
name is Ibeabuchi Izuchukwu Innocent, a professor at the Federal
University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), the returning officer for Imo
West (Orlu) senatorial zone”, the official said.

“My area commander; my P.Os; the party agents here present; members of the press; ladies and gentlemen.

“I
have been held hostage here for days so I’m trying to ease off and take
my life home back to my children and for the sake of that I am calling
these results under duress,” the returning officer said.

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He then reeled out the results.

The Drama
After announcing nine out of 12 local government areas that made up the zone, Mr Ibeabuchi paused. The time was 9:45 p.m Sunday.

Three LGA results were being awaited to finalise results for Imo west district. They are Oru West, Ugwuta and Orlu.

The
outgoing governor of the state, Rocha Okorocha who ran under the All
Progressives Congress (APC) won in eight of the nine local governments
announced earlier.

Mr Ibeabuchi said he received an urgent call
from the state’s Resident Electoral Commission (REC), Francis Ezeonu, to
return to Owerri and continue the process Monday morning.

But Mr
Okorocha’s supporters insisted the returning officer “must complete”
the announcement, “otherwise, he is not going anywhere.”

They blocked the professor from leaving the building. They refused to yield even when police officers intervened.

For
hours, the APC agents who initially hauled verbal threats at the
returning officer resorted to pleading. But Mr Ibeabuchi stuck to his
guns.

He remained unmoved even after Mr Okorocha and his closest
rival, Jones Onyeriri of the Peoples Democratic Party visited the centre
at different intervals Monday morning.

Mr Ibeabuchi would later
yield and declared Mr Okorocha winner of the election. He said the
governor polled 97,762 votes while Mr Onyeriri returned second with
63,117 votes.

Mr Okorocha’s old rival and a former senator, Osita Izunaso, came third with 30,932 votes.

What happened?
It
was not immediately clear why Mr Ibeabuchi initially refused to
announce the remaining results on Sunday night but later did on Monday
“under duress.”

When contacted, INEC spokesperson in the state,
Emmanuella Opara, said the commission was following the development and
had sent security personnel to bring Mr Ibeabuchi to Owerri.

“Let him come back here with his report and tell us what happened.”

Mr
Onyeriri, who is a sitting member of the House of Representatives,
later alleged that the returning officer was held hostage throughout the
night by Mr Okorocha’s supporters after a directive from the REC to
“stop the collation and return to Owerri.”

He said
Mr Ibeabuchi stopped the process after observing “the whole results were
rigged and inflated in favour” of the outgoing governor.

“Throughout the night, they used several means to compel the returning officer to go ahead with the wrong results.”

He further described elections in the zone as heavily rigged by Mr Okorocha, saying he would not accept the results.

“In
Ideeato South, he brought all collation officers to his house and
compelled them to write results on his behalf. The number turned out was
far behind the number captured by smartcard reader.

“He also
colluded with some RAC techs to make the smart card readers not to work
to enable him to do normal registration, hence inflation of voters.

“I
want that results to be changed because I will not accept them. I am
the actual winner. In law, if the returning officer says he can no
longer continue, you cannot force him.”

The election was adjudged
by observers and participants to be fraught with irregularities such as
ballot snatching, invasion of polling units and harassment of voters by
thugs.

Shortly before the governor’s arrival, PREMIUM TIMES
reported how a journalist, duly accredited to cover the polls, was
harassed and briefly detained by the thugs in Mr Okorocha’s polling unit
at about 10:14 am.

This happened in the presence of two female police officers at the centre.

Source:- Premiumtimesng