By Brenda Chidinma Imo-Eze
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Ebonyi South Senatorial Bye-Election, Silas Onu has alleged that the election was pre-determined and meticulously planned by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in favor of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Onu made this revelation shortly after the electoral result, announcing the candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Prof. Anthony Ani Okorie as the winner of the election.
Recall, the bye-election in Ebonyi South was conducted owing to the vacancy created by the resignation of Senator David Umahi, now Minister of Works.
According to the Independent Electoral Commissioner (INEC) Prof.Anthony Ani polled 46,270 votes, defeating his closest rival, Ifeanyi Eleje of APGA who garnered 3,513 and Onu of the PDP who garnered 2,783 votes. Mr Linus Okorie of the LP scored 2,710 votes in the bye-electHon.
In a statement signed by Slias Onu and made available to SpringNews, Onu detailed a series of events of how the process was marred leading up to the election day. He accused INEC, of collaborating with the APC to manipulate the outcome.
According to Onu, the election interference was apparent in various stages, starting with the deliberate neglect of monitoring PDP congresses, followed by legal actions aimed at discrediting the PDP’s primary election.
Onu contends that a Federal High Court Judge, allegedly colluding with APC interests, played a role in canceling their duly conducted primary election.
The letter reads “the result of the election interference by the Judge was clear yesterday as only 58, 075 voters came out to vote from the total registered voters/PVC collection of 484, 259 in the 5 LGAs of Ebonyi South. So many of our voters were told that the PDP was no longer on the ballot as “Court had disqualified Silas Joseph Onu”. People gave up on the process, hence the very low turn-out on the election day.
“That was not enough for INEC and the APC, they went further to ensure that election did not take place by deliberately circumventing the BVAS in virtually every polling unit, after some level of accreditation had been done. So, where a particular polling unit had an accreditation of 100 voters, they deliberately and forcefully hijacked the ballot papers and thumbprint without accreditation. Then write a result that indicates they had won that polling unit with 1000 votes.
“This was not done by mistake or due to lack of knowledge – it is the new way that INEC rig election for the government. Follow the drift.
“At the collation centres, INEC Collation Officers openly claimed to have cancelled results from all polling units where there was over-voting without completing the Form EC40G. Then proposed to share the accredited votes between political parties.
“When we refused to partake in the heist, they simply harvested the valid accreditations from these cancelled polling unit (which were more than 90% of all the polling units across the 5 LGAs) and allotted them to the APC, leaving other political parties with zero votes in the cancelled polling units. Basically, after claiming that they cancelled votes for over-voting, they actually gave APC all the actual accreditation from such polling units, irrespective of where these accredited voters cast their votes.
“If all the results with over-voting were actually cancelled for all parties, there was no way the total remaining votes will exceed 10, 000 in all the 5 LGAs. So, INEC basically allocated accredited figures in polling units where results were cancelled to APC and that is how they emerged – stolen votes.”
Adding “I must commend my co-candidates of APGA and Labour Party, Hon. Ifeanyi Eleje and Hon. Linus Okorie for their resilience and scoring legitimate votes just like me. If you put together our votes, there is no way that APC will win if the cancellations were allowed to be out of the figures calculated.
In all, we give glory to God Almighty for the grace given to us before, during and after the sham that INEC called election – it was a pre-determined event, carefully and methodically planned by INEC for APC.
“Looking at what is obtainable in our Election Petition Tribunals, it will be a total waste of time to engage in any venture of attempting to prove the obvious in this judicial theatre.
Therefore, it will be apt to say that power comes from God and God does not bless evil or partake in it. May the will of God be done in Ebonyi South – peace is paramount in all that we seek.”he said.
He therefore encouraged his teeming supporters never to give up, as their sacrifice for their party will not be in vain.