This Daylight Robbery Can’t Stand, Ogah Vows To Challenge Ikpeazu’s Victory

The Abia state governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Uche Ogah, has vowed to challenge Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s victory in the recently held gubernatorial election in the state.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Governor Ikpeazu as winner of the election after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate polled a total of 261, 127 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ogah who scored 99, 574 votes in the election.

Both Ogah and Dr Alex Otti of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), who came second with 64, 366 votes in the election, had jointly rejected the declared results, saying “We reject in totality, the results of 2019 governorship election as announced by INEC and demand its total cancellation in the entire state.”

The duo had alleged that the results collated in various local government areas in the Abia poll, “were not only fraudulent but do not represent the true reflection of the outcome of the elections.”

Ogah has now revealed in an interview with Leadership newspaper that he will be approaching the tribunal to challenge the outcome of the Abia governorship election.

He said, “We are trying to gather materials and evidence to prove our case before the tribunal. We will definitely approach the tribunal to seek justice because what happened in Abia State was injustice. During the election, INEC was working with the incumbent, the security agents were working with the incumbent and despite our complaints, they never listened to us. We wrote to INEC chairman, IGP and everybody that needed to hear but they refused to listen to us. During the election, they were interested in ensuring that PDP comes back to power in Abia State.

Asked if he suspects sabotage in the election, the APC candidate said: “Whether some people sabotaged our efforts or not, all I know is that Abians came out en-mass and voted for me and President Muhammadu Buhari, during the election. When they saw that we were winning, they went and brought written results from six local governments. Some people may have tried to sabotage our efforts but the electorates were behind us. They even came to INEC to protest.

“Even when they wanted to announce their fake results, people protested. People protested and the man told them he was going on break and that he was not going to announce the result yet but immediately the people dispersed, he went ahead to announce the result. An individual may decide one thing but definitely cannot be speaking the minds of the people. During the presidential election, one slogan that worked for us was: ‘’If you cannot vote for Buhari, don’t vote for me. The second slogan was, ‘’If you want Uche Ogah to become your governor, vote for Buhari.”

Ogah added, “Those were the two slogans that made the people to come out en-masse and vote for APC. During the presidential election, the results credited to PDP were written results which did not reflect the true picture of what happened in the election.

“As a matter of fact, APC won the presidential election in Abia State. INEC knew that they were supposed to do ward collation, but they refused to do that, rather, they chased away our agents, took the results to local government Councils where they wrote the results. Election should not be a do or die affair. I believe due process should be followed and where that is not done, the election should be cancelled,” he said.

Meanwhile, Governor Ikpeazu had after receiving his certificate of return from INEC on March 28, extended a hand of fellowship to Ogah and Otti.

“I call on my brothers and those who lost in the election to join us to build the Abia of our dreams. This is the only way to go because in every election or contest, there must be a winner and losers,” the governor had said in statement by his chief press secretary, Enyinnaya Apollos.

“For us, this is a victory for Abia and since all of us that participated in the election are all Abians, it then means there is no loser in the actual sense. We must collaborate for the good of our state and our people,” Ikpeazu added.