Abia Reps poll: Obingwa Concerned Citizens demand Osisioma election rerun, faults INEC’s conduct

A non-governmental group, Obingwa Concerned Citizens, has called for calm from Abians especially the people of Obingwa/Osisioma/Ugwunagbo Federal Constitituency over what it described as the insensitivity perpetrated by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, during the just concluded Presidential and National Assembly elections.

The group, which spoke through its leader, Comrade Emmanuel Munachim Onyenso, said the decision of INEC to go ahead and announced results of the elections even when most areas where yet to exercise their franchise showed they were not prepared for the elections but to carry out an assignment against the will of the people.

The Obingwa Concerned Citizens which called for a rerun election in areas that the poll failed to hold in the federal constituency, said the mandate of the people cannot be stolen through the backdoor even as it vowed to ensure that the nation’s electoral umpire do the right thing.

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The group expressed disappointment over INEC’s refusal to keep to its words even after admitting and declaring that elections did not hold in some polling units in the constituency especially at Obingwa and Osisioma Local Government Areas with over 40,000 voters disenfranchised voters.

The Obingwa Concerned Citizens therefore urged the electoral body to as a matter of responsibility hold elections at the said wards and polling units, insisting that no one can be declared winner over an inconclusive election.

According to group, in Obingwa 4 Wards, 7 Polling Units with a total of 8316 registered voters were disenfranchised while in Osisioma, 4 Wards, 68 polling units and a total of 37,029 registered were also disenfranchised, amounting to over forty thousand persons deliberately disenfranchised by INEC.

Citing the Electoral Act, the group insisted that INEC has until seven days after the elections were conducted and inconclusive to investigate and conduct elections at affected locations to ensure the people exercised their fundamental human rights.

It called on INEC to include the two affected Local Governments in the March 11th elections to give peace a chance.

According to group, some polling units did not have electoral materials or officers dispatched to them despite voters having waited for hours, and accused INEC of denying the people of their right to exercise their civic responsibility.

“People came out en mass to vote but INEC officials and materials were no where to be found,” they said.

They wondered how the electoral umpire concluded on elections while thousands of persons could not exercise their franchise owing to their failure to ensure the timely arrival of materials and the electoral staff, or the non arrival of electoral officials at some polling units, and the lack of result sheets for House of Representatives elections among other irregularities.

The organization also frowned at the lies told by INEC on the use of the Bimodial Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, to transmit results technologically, while accusing the electoral umpire of manipulating and transmitted results manually.

The group called on relevant stakeholders to prevail on INEC to ensure accountability as well as a rerun at the polling units with immediate effect.

While calling on the people of Obingwa/Osisioma/Ugwunagbo Federal Constituency especially the youths to give peace a chance, the group vowed to ensure that INEC conducts the rescheduled elections across the constituency, adding that a petition had been written against Abia INEC to that effect.

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