In a runoff to prepare for the rerun governorship election in Abia state, a Coalition of Civil society Organisation and Election Observers has called for cancellation of the election in four local governments in Abia state. The local governments are Obingwa, Osiioma, Ugwunagbo and Isialangwa North.
The Coalition on Friday while giving report on the Abia gubernatorial election called for total cancellation of the election as it accused the state government and the PDP of interference and malpractices in the poll.
The PDP thugs led by a law, Ugwuzor Adindu, and his team demanded that the briefing should be held in Abia and not Lagos.
In his argument, Adindu, said that other senatorial zones have ruled and it is time for Abia south senatorial to rule, though not minding the wish of the Abia people.
Meanwhile, it was learnt that journalists in the state have always being subjected to various harassment and intimidation in reporting any thing that against the ruling party.
The Coalition led by Comrade David Anyaele, of Centre for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), accused the PDP stalwarts of thumb printing ballot papers in their homes and snatching ballot boxes.
Comrade Anyaele, however called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to redeploy all erring INEC officers found culpable and have played a role in the controversial election in the state.
“We demand for total cancellation of the four Local Government Areas, Ugwunagbo, Osiosioma, Obingwa and Isiala Ngwa north; not some pulling units or wards in those areas because reports from our teams of observers show there is no elections in these areas.
“With negative public perceptions of the elections in the state and ahead of the rerun, INEC should take every necessary step to protect the integrity of the election as a way of strengthening the trust of the electorate in the voting process and should guide against interference by the incumbent and other political and public office holders.
“Deploy the corrupt INEC officers who have in one way or other compromised in the inconclusive election to upheld the commission integrity in organizing a transparent and credible election. The results released in these LGAs are highly questionable due to the level of voter apathy in the gubernatorial election.
On security issues, the CSO demanded that adequate deployment of security personnel to the affected areas should be a priority.
According to Anyaele, party agents should be allowed to have access to the ward and Local Government Coalition centers, as this was one of the issues experienced in the last Election where opposition party Agents was not allowed into the coalition centres by the security Agents.
Security Agents and INEC officials in the state who was involved in the controversial Election should be deployed.
Observers also noted that deployment of independent local and international observers across the country to areas of the re-run elections should also be looked into critically.
“We are demanding for the Deployment of independent local and international observers across the country to the areas of the re-run Elections,” said other groups represented at the media briefing.
The Civil Society Groups and election observers also called on the INEC not to back down on the use of the Smart Card Readers in the state to forestall any form of irregularities as being planned by some political parties.
“Emphasis should be placed on the use of the card readers, which is utmost paramount importance and the use of the incident forms in the case of the thumb-print authentication fails, as most of the voters in the just concluded polls was disfranchised due to the failure of the card reader and non-usage of the incident forms,” said Leonard Onyemeshiri, of Justice Development Peace and Commission (JDPC).
The Director in Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy & Development (FENRAD), Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor said state machineries (Local Government chairman, commissioners and other political appointee of the Ruling Party in the State) should not be allowed to meddle or interfere the electoral process from the polling units to the coalition centres ,as their activities were evident in the controversial inconclusive Election.
Comrade Innocent Anozie Nwakocha of Society for Economic Rights & Sociual Justice (SERSJ) said that collation centres should be made safe and secure due to unnecessary interference of the agents of the state government.
“Due to the interference by the agents of the ruling party in manipulation of election results, we demand that collation centres should be moved out of the Local Government Headquarters to the INEC Local Government Headquarters to avoid the repeat of the same incident in the re-run Election,” he said.
