TheCable

The Andy Uba campaign organisation has rejected the result of the Anambra governorship election.

Chukwuma Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), secured 112,229 votes to defeat his two major rivals — Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who got 53,807 votes, and Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who secured 43,285 votes.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Soludo as the winner of the poll on Wednesday.

In a statement on Thursday, Jerry Ugokwe, spokesman of the organisation, said Uba is a “victim of widespread electoral fraud”.

“The elections were characterised by widespread irregularities, intimidation and voter suppression in order to clear the path for the inglorious ‘victory’ of APGA in the polls,” he said.

“For instance, in polling units where the Biometric Voter Accreditation System malfunctioned, INEC went ahead to conduct the elections manually. There were numerous cases where votes announced by INEC exceeded the number of accredited voters in polling units.

“Another clear manifestation of collusion between the Obiano administration and INEC was the publishing of results on the social media handles of APGA even before official announcement by INEC. Yet mysteriously, the votes announced in advance by APGA always correspond correctly with the official figures released by INEC.

“It is inconceivable that our candidate, who polled over 200,000 votes in the APC primary election would be allocated a slightly above 43,000 votes by INEC.

“It is surprising that APGA that lost almost 80% of its stalwarts through defection to the APC before the election came out ‘victorious’. A sitting APGA deputy governor, seven members of the house of representatives, 10 members of the Anambra state house of assembly, the APGA party’s member of Board of Trustees, many serving SA’s, SSA’s, in addition to a serving PDP Senator all defected to the APC very timely before the election, yet APGA emerged ‘victorious’. This is quite ridiculous!

“There was definitely no way the carcass of APGA could have defeated the APC without the active collusion and manipulation by INEC and the Obiano administration.

“What happened on November 6, 2021 fell far below the acceptable standard of a free and fair election and can best be described as an electoral fraud perpetrated by the INEC, Willie Obiano administration and the security forces.”

Ugokwe added that it is “crystal clear that the game plan was to overturn the popular wishes of the people of Anambra state in the biggest electoral heist of all time in Nigeria’s political history”.

Meanwhile, Ifeanyi Ubah, governorship candidate of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), and Ozigbo of the PDP have since congratulated Soludo on his win.