The re-run election for the Imo North (Okigwe Senatorial District) and three local government areas in Imo State – Isiala Mbano, Owerri West and Oru East – took place Saturday, July 23, 2016, in the various wards and poling stations with heavy presence of security personnel and voters’ apathy.
Although electoral officers and enthusiastic electorate arrived at the various voting centres as early as 7:30am to exercise their franchise, materials for the conduct of the exercise arrived belatedly in most of the voting centres in Irette, Orogwe, Avu, Okuku, Umuguma, Obinze and Ihiagwa, all in the Owerri West council.
In the Oru East council, the picture was the same at Omuma, Okata and Awomama, while in the Isiala Mbano council, heavy rain threatened the exercise at Amaraku, Ugiri, Obollo and Umuelemai.
At the Community Secondary School Amaraku, (booth 003) and the Central School Amaraku in the Isiala Mbano council, eligible voters were seen in queues waiting patiently to exercise their franchise.
The memeber for the Okigwe North Federal Constituency, which comprises Okigwe, Onuimo and Isiala Mbano LGA, Hon. Obinna Onwubuariri, defiled the downpour and voted in his booth at exactly 10:19am after which he expressed delight at the conduct of the polls.
Onwubuariri, however, decried the late arrival of electoral materials in most of the polling stations even as he expressed optimism that his party (PDP) would smile home with victory at the end of the day.
Invariably, a two time Senator for the zone, Ifeanyi Araraume, who also voted in his Isiebu ward (Isiala Mbano), could not be reached for comment as he quickly drove off to an unknown destination after casting his vote even as the main entrance gate to his house was barricaded by mobile policemen.
The scenario was the same at Umunumo country home for the PDP Senatorial candidate, Chief Athan Nneji Achonu, as heavily armed stern-looking Mobile Policemen took over the premises of his compound and prevented newsmen from having access to him.
But ex-governor of Imo State, Ikedi Ohakim, after exercising his franchise at his village in Okohi, Isiala Mbano, accused the APC of plotting to rig the polls, stating that the party (APC) had adopted a do-or-die style to bulldoze its way to power at all costs and by all means. He warned that the PDP would resist the APC’s move to impose its candidate on the people of the zone.
At his Osu-Owerre ward 2, a chieftain of the APC, Chief Chikwem Onuoha, described the election as peaceful and orderly. Onuoha commended both security agencies and the electorate for their orderly display of patriotism as he dismissed allegations of electoral malpractices leveled against him by the rival PDP as frivolous.
