Abia Labour Party chair buys own coffin

Posted by admin Abia, Headlines, Labour Party (LP), Party Politics, State News Friday, May 20th, 2011

The Abia State Chairman of Labour Party (LP), Chief Obi Aguocha, said yesterday that he has prepared his own burial programme, as he awaits death in the hands of those who might think that he is talking too much. He said that he did that to make things easy for those he alleged have been threatening him with death through phone calls and text messages.

Aguocha said that he has discovered that no matter how long one stays in life , whether he says the truth or not, he would one day die and for this reason, he has bought his own casket , made a choice of suit for his burial.
He stated that one thing he would not fail to do is to tell the truth, adding that his supposed killers can come now if they so wish. Aguocha, who spoke to Daily Sun in his home, Ohuhu, joined numerous Abians to call for the cancellation of the guber poll, alleging that there was no election. He also believed that, the sitting government has not done well at all.

“Abia are people who believe because of sycophancy that their governor has performed when in actual fact, he has not performed. They are also people who are not brave enough to say that the governor has not performed when he has not performed. We are not in opposition , we all love Abia State and we want Abia State to be a little better. We should have an opportunity where the state would be uplifted so that the citizens of Abia would have an opportunity to be able to feed their own family. We want to go to work and feel safe, we want the governor to understand that he can’t go to sleep, knowing that the people in Ohanku in Aba and people in Obuohia are living in some of the tortuous conditions even in this rainy season . The work to be done to uplift Abia State, in my view, cannot be defined by opposition or no opposition .It is either you believe that the governor is doing a good job , which is not, or that he is not doing a good job ,which I believe that he is not doing a good work”.

According to him, there was no election in the state , as what was called election was characterized with malpractices in different shapes and sizes. “My impression as regards the polls in Abia is that there was no election in the state. We have several reported incidences of election malpractices, incidences , where the military , along with the ruling party in Abia State as well as INEC were in direct collaboration to the advantage of one political party, PDP (Peoples Democratic Party).

“We have also petitioned the National judicial Commission and intimidated it with all the problems we observed in Abia State. It is a travesty that in Abia, while other states are moving forward, the people in Abia are still being denied an opportunity to elect their own leaders. They have announced the results and I believe that most of the so-called victories in Abia State would be upturned by the courts. Most of us are waiting to take the next step within the next 21 days window allowed. The election in my view and in the view of the Labour Party which I represent is a sham. I think the courts will have the ultimate decision as to who won the respective seats contested for in the various elections in Abia State.

I am not interested in what happened anywhere. My general interest is Abia State, which is my own immediate environment. Politics is all local and Abia is my local constituency. You cannot call the exercise an election when the military was being used to abuse, molest and intimidate people from coming out to vote. There were ballot box snatching and presiding officers involving in acts of illegality.
“I don’t know if some of you listened to Pace Setter Radio on the day of election as independent people were calling in to report what was going on during the election .

These were independent people reporting live what was going on at various polling units. When you assess all that happened , you will find out that the election was nothing, but sham. If we have had a credible election, the margin of victory as allocated by the ruling party would not have been the same as we have it today. If you listened to Reagan Ufomba on the air a few days ago, he was citing instance with Arochukwu where APGA has 15,000 registered members and they were only allotted 100 votes, where are the rest of the votes or did they not come out to vote?

“I am sure that the courts would look at some of the evidences tendered so that credible winners will have the opportunity to exercise the authority of the mandate given to them by the people, if not, it then means that we have to go for a re-run.
“We are still seeking legal advice and collecting evidences at Labour Party, because it is not all about going to court , it is all about showing evidences to whatever claims you make.

“As a citizen of Abia , I see it as my duty to make corrections at the office of Governor when I see things going wrong and I don’t see all these as opposing the government in power. The problem we have here is that most of us are indifferent to the person and character of the governor and the only thing we are interested in is the performance, but in my view, this governor is yet to deliver what he has been elected to deliver for and on behalf of the people of Abia State. I don’t see that as being in opposition.

If I am drawing the attention of the people to the performance deliveries of this government , it does not make one who is in opposition , it is my hope that the Governor will learn from his own shortcomings just to withdraw from some of those short-comings and deliver to the people of Abia state what is expected of him.
“The elections of 2011 were based on the Electoral Act of 2010 as amended , now 2015 cannot go if we continue to have the same anomaly that has visited 2011. The only way we can do it , as to what is right and not right is to seek electoral interpretation to the procedure of the INEC process of 2011 elections”, Aguocha said .

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