Tunji Adedeji
Hon. Austin Chukwukere the All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers from Ideato North/Ideato South Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives and the candidate of the party in last Saturday general elections has called for total cancellation of the results of the just- concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections in the state.
Chukwukere made the call while speaking with newsmen in Owerri on Monday, where he alleged that the elections were marred with Irregularities.
He further stressed that card readers were not used during the exercise,noting that the outgoing governor Rochas Okorocha and his agents manipulated results of the elections.
Chukwukere described the exercise as a total sham because the result of the exercise didn’t reflect the wishes of the people.
The lawmaker said “in many places during collation before the incursion of thugs, I was leading but suddenly thugs appeared from nowhere into collation centres and made away with results and INEC returning officers. When the officials later showed up, everything had been doctored in favour of Action Alliance (AA) and our people feel highly marginalised”, he lamented.
Further he said ” is it not curious that while my party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) won the Presidential, and Senate election, the AA was alleged to have won the House of Representatives and we ask, how did our people make out the difference, how come AA has the same result with that of Senate? It is not fair on our people”, Chukwukere stated.
He explained that Ideato federal constituency is a strong hold of the APC, so how did Action Alliance party get the number of votes allocated to them especially in places where election did not hold due to card readers malfunctioning.
Chukwukere called on INEC to cancel the entire election for House of Representatives and conduct fresh, and free polls, saying failure to do so will amount to voter apathy because people will believe their votes do not count.
“I call on INEC to do the needful, they should cancel that result because it is not the wish of our people. If it stands, it means Ideato people have been disenfranchised from quality representation and that we have lost our voice in the national assembly”, the lawmaker warned.
He also alleged that some of the collection officers disappeared with the result sheet on Saturday and never came back till Sunday , having colluded with some INEC officials to give victory to the candidate of the Action Alliance,AA in Ideato .
The soft spoken Lawmaker prayer that this election be cancelled and a new date be set for the conduct of the elections into the House of Representatives, particularly the Ideato North/Ideato South.”
