Anambra: Candidate asks Jega to probe N150m alleged bribery

Posted by admin Uncategorized Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the botched Aguata House of Representatives election, Mr. Chike Anyaonu, has called on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to investigate the N150m bribery allegation leveled against the Electoral Officer for Aguata Local Government Area.

Anyaonu stated this in a petition to Jega, a copy of which was made available to our correspondent in Awka, the Anambra State capital, on Wednesday.

The EO, Mr. Blessing Chukwuemeka, has denied the allegation, saying, “It is not true. It is false and unfounded.”

Titled, “Situation Report on Aguata Federal Constituency Rerun Election of Tuesday, April 26, 2011; a Call for Probe,” Anyaonu’s petition said Chukwuemeka diverted the result sheets meant for the conduct of the rerun election in two wards in the constituency to a particular political party.

It was the inability of the EO to let the agents of the other political parties see the Form EC8B that roused curiosity, which led to a stalemate.

The party agents had insisted that the election materials would not move to the polling units unless the result sheets were seen and taken along with other materials.

The stalemate that followed the stand-off eventually led to the cancellation of the rerun in the constituency.

Anyaonu also urged the INEC chairman to review the House of Representatives election of Saturday, April 9, 2011 in Aguata with a review to doing justice to the matter.

He writes, “I submit that the election was generally peaceful and commendable, except for the two wards, Umuchu 1 and Igboukwu 1, where the results were cancelled to every person’s knowledge due to the intransigence of APGA and ACN agents/supporters respectively.

“For instance, PDP was leading in Umuchu 1 in particular with over 800 votes before the incident of thuggry and snatching of the collated ward results from the INEC officials on their way to the INEC office that day.

“Can somebody who is in the lead already resort to result snatching? As for Igboukwu ward 1, the ACN candidate who hails from that town reportedly assaulted the ward Collation Officer and in the course of that obstructed him from completing his work.

“In these instances, I contend that the sins of evil doers cannot justifiably be visited on the righteous?

“The booth by booth results of these two wards are there with both INEC officials and the security agents. The best thing to do under the circumstance is to call for these results, complete the collation in the two wards and announce the final scores and the winner of the election.”

Anyaonu said Chukwuemeka and the REC must be removed from conducting the election in Aguata federal constituency.

-Punchwp_posts