The All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate in Imo State and incumbent Governor of the state, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, has faulted the independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for declaring last Saturday’s gubernatorial election in the state inconclusive and announcing supplementary elections in some wards across the state.
Okorocha, who expressed his disappointment to reporters at the Government House in Imo State on Monday, said the supplementary election would have been unnecessary if INEC had considered the number of Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, distributed in the affected areas instead of the number of registered voters.
INEC’s Returning Officer in the State, Ibidapo Obe, announced that the election was inconclusive because the margin (79,529) between the frontrunner, Okorocha and his contender, Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was less than the number of registered voters (144,715) in wards across the state where elections did not hold or were cancelled due to violence. He maintained that a new date would be announced for a supplementary election.
Although the APC candidate is mindful of the provision of the electoral law regarding the number of registered voters, he said INEC should have considered distribution of PVC in the affected areas instead of registered voters as only voters with PVC can vote.
His words, “The electoral act has talked about registered voters and in the workings of that act and in the spirit of the law, you cannot not make use of number of registered voters, you have to make use of number of PVC collected.
“When you look at the number of PVC collected you find out that there is no need for this supplementary election because the number of PVC collected will be less than the 79,000 votes difference between me and the PDP candidate. But now they are basing on the number of registered voters. Number of registered voters does not cast the vote; it is the number of PVC collected that does.”
Expressing his readiness to participate in the supplementary election, Okorocha went ahead to claim victory in the election as he said, “You can only change the date of a burial but you cannot change the burial. From the results available, the fact speaks for itself, we have won this election despite all the irregularities,” Mr. Okorocha with a contented smile.
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