Anambra REC, others face INEC probe in Abuja

Posted by admin Anambra, Elections 2011, INEC Politics, State News, Top Stories Thursday, April 14th, 2011

Anambra State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Prof Chukwuemeka Onukaogu, led other Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials from the state to face the panel probing the Anambra Central senatorial election stalemate at the Abuja headquarters of the commission.

INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, had on Wednesday announced that the commission was instituting a panel to investigate the senatorial election impasse which has pitted former Governor Chris Ngige of the Action Congress of Nigeria [ACN] against former Information Minister, Dora Akunyili of the All Progressives Grand Alliance [APGA].
The officials came with a pick-up van loaded with documents comprising of ballot papers, result sheets and other materials used during the controversial election.

Onukaogu and a few others have appeared as at Press time with the panel members grilling them on what went wrong. Mr. Alex Anene, the Returning Officer, who alleged that his life was being threatened and that he was offered bribe, was on the hot seat stating his own side of the story before the panel.

Ngige said he would wish the panel invite him to give his own account of what transpired during the election. He told newsmen that he had made a submission to the panel, the INEC Chairman and a some of the National Commissioners on his observation of what happened and that he supported wholeheartedly the decision to set up the panel which he said would reveal many things that happened on election day.

Jega had on Wednesday night accepted that his commission was confused over the Anambra Central Senatorial District election saga. The INEC boss admitted that Anambra State was one of the politically challenging places in the country, saying the only way out was for the commission to probe the matter.

The INEC boss also revealed that already, both the controversial Returning Officer Anene who was said to have absconded claiming that some people close the Anambra State government were trying to induce him to rig the election in their favour, the REC as well as every other person included in the conduct of the election would appear before the panel.