By kelechi ugo
After much speculations surrounding the out come of the April 11th, 2015 gubernatorial and State House of Assembly elections in Imo state, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Resident Electoral Commissioner for Imo State, Dr Gabriel Ada has at last fixed 25th April, 2015 for the election re-run in the State.
Briefing Newsmen in Owerri yesterday at the Commission’s secretariat located on Port Harcourt Road, Owerri, Dr Ada revealed that the reasons for declaring the last weekend elections in Imo state inconclusive by the INEC state Returning Officer, Prof Ibidape-Obe was because of irregularities and violence which halted the elections in various polling units.
“I hereby announce to you that over 250 polling booths across 23 out of 27 LGAs of Imo state were ruined by election violence.
And number of registered voters in the areas are approximately 145,000. INEC has set up machineries in motion to ensure that all the collation Officers who manipulated figures in the course of presenting election results as well as those who were found guilty of electoral offences are being brought to book at the end of this exercise.
May I also announce that INEC has declared the underlisted state Assembly constituencies inconclusive; Owerri-West, Oguta, Ikeduru, Oru-East, Isu and Isiala Mbano. INEC has also banned manual accreditation in the electoral process. And will ensure that every voter is accredited via card reader to ensure free, fair, credible and transparent election”, the REC insisted.
The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner further disclosed that those who won 28th March National Assembly seat will soon get their certificate of Returns as the INEC National secretariat has commenced work on their certificates.
It would be recalled that both All Progressive Congress APC and People’s Democratic Party PDP members have continued to embark on rampage since Tuesday demanding that their respective candidates should be declared winner of the election. Meanwhile, results available show that the three major gubernatorial candidates in Imo state scored the following votes; Capt Emma Ihenacho of APGA = 28,238 votes, Hon Emeka Ihedioha of PDP = 306,142 while Gov Rochas Okorocha of APC scored 385,671 votes.
