The All Progressives Grand Alliance’s Enyinnaya Abaribe was declared the victor of the Abia South Senate election, which has drawn criticism from the governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu.
He claimed that INEC was incorrect to proclaim Abaribe the winner.
This was revealed by Ikpeazu on Wednesday via Charles Esonu, the PDP collation agent.
He said that the affected units collectively had 200,000 voters, outnumbering the votes of all parties.
Ikpeazu was perplexed as to why Abaribe was proclaimed the victor of the election after the electoral commission determined that 108 polling units in Obingwa, Aba South, and Abia North did not hold elections.
Ikpeazu claimed that the lack of provision and the delayed arrival of election materials prevented more than 50,000 PDP supporters from exercising their right to vote.
“We would have been able to scrutinize. There were several mutilations on the result from Aba South LGA, they also cancelled many units in Aba South.
“The Returning Officer, Prof. Georgina Ugwuanyi, at the collation centre at Constitution Crescent primary school, Aba, declared the election inconclusive.
“This was due to a substantial number of polling units, totalling 108 which had issues requiring a rescheduled election,” he said.
Esonu revealed that due to the gap in favorability between the top and second-place candidates, he instructed the returning officer not to proclaim a winner.
“Abaribe was leading with 6,000 votes. The returning officer agreed with party agents that nobody should be declared a winner because of the margin of lead.
“We were shocked Prof. Ugwuanyi later returned to the collation centre in the afternoon and declared a winner, citing orders from above,” Esonu added.
It can be recalled that the INEC pronounced Abaribe the winner on Tuesday with 49,693 votes, while Ikpeazu received 28,422 votes.
The constituency is now represented by Abaribe in Congress.
