- Safiu Kehinde
The Labour Party (LP) has formally rejected the outcome of Saturday’s Anambra State’s Governorship Election, citing vote buying and underage voting, among other irregularities.
NPO Reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) Returning Officer, Prof. Edoba Omoregie, had on Sunday declared Prof. Charles Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) winner of the Saturday poll.
As announced by Ooregie, Soludo polled 422,664 votes to defeat his closest rival, Chief Nichols Ukachukwu of the APC, who garnered 99,445 votes.
While Paul Chukwuma of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) came third with 37,753 votes, George Moghalu of the Labour Party polled 10,576 votes.
Addressing newsmen in Nnewi on Sunday, Moghalu, alleged that the election lacked transparency.
He held that the election was not credible, free and fair while stressing that reports were still being compiled from the field.
“The Nov. 8 election has come and gone, but the truth is that it was a sham.
“There were issues of vote buying, intimidation of party agents, underage voting, among others.
“We will do a comprehensive position of the party after studying all the reports from across the state.
“We are still expecting a comprehensive report, but for now, we can boldly say that the election was not credible, free and fair.
“INEC had its own failure. In some instances, result sheets were not seen and voting were going on.
“If you look at the social media, there was buying and selling of votes at alarming level, probably the reason for poverty so that people can be bought with money,” Moghalu said.
The Labour Party’s candidate also alleged that one of his major supporters in Obosi, Idemili North Local Government Area, was picked up and beaten to a pulp, in spite of the heavy presence of security personnel.
“The security agencies promised us total security, which was why I understand that over 45,000 personnel were deployed with over 20 CPs, AIGs, and DIGs in the state.
“However, at the end of the day, they could not stop the visible vote-buying everywhere.
“The entire process was faulty. We reject the outcome of the election,” he said.
Moghalu further said that the party’s name was not in the ballot papers, which only had the logo.
He asked, “How do you explain that to somebody who doesn’t know the logo but knows the name?”
In an interview, the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Theo Egbe, who commended INEC’s effort, said the poll was largely peaceful.
Egbe, however, decried the high level of vote-buying at the election, describing it as “disheartening”.
“Every vote cast yesterday was paid for, and the average pay for each vote was N10,000.
“The most worrisome and painful thing is that the voters themselves came out prepared to bargain and sell their votes to the highest bidder,” he said.
He also said that the development portended great danger for future elections.
Egbe urged INEC and security agencies to nip the menace in the bud.
Meanwhile, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Anambra, Mrs Queen Agwu, had dismissed the allegations as “unsubstantiated,” urging anyone with proof to come forward.
Agwu told newsmen in an interview that no credible evidence had been presented to support the claims.
She contended that “no verified case of vote-buying was reported to the commission’s situation room throughout the exercise”.
Agwu commended the overall conduct of the election, describing INEC’s logistics and security deployment as “effective”.