Declare our candidate winner of rerun election – Imo PDP urges INEC

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Imo State has called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to declare its candidate for the Isu state constituency, Modestus Osakwe, the winner of the rerun election without any further delay.

PDP decried the spate of violence witnessed at the four polling units where rerun elections were supposed to hold today.

In a statement signed by its state Publicity Secretary, Collins Opurozor and made available to Newspot in Owerri, PDP accused Imo APC of coercion, carting away of election materials and abduction of INEC officials in Isu LGA today. As a result of the disruption, the rerun election could not hold in any of the four polling units.

The statement reads: “The consequence of this barbarity and mindless war by the APC is that, in keeping with the provisions of the Electoral Act, the scores for all the political parties in the four polling units would be zero.

“It, therefore, becomes necessary for INEC to uphold and announce the result of the election as it was before the shambolic rerun.

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“For the avoidance of doubt, of the 123 polling units in Isu LGA, 122 results had earlier been successfully collated and uploaded on the iREV. This represented 99.19% of the total results. The only result which was not transmitted came from Ekwe Ward 1, Booth 16, where APC thugs had made away with the BVAS. Nevertheless, the result has been ready with us and available at the INEC office, in Owerri.

“In four other polling units where elections were disrupted by thugs because of the imminent loss of APC, the INEC Forms EC 40 G were duly signed by the POs, SPOs, and the EO. In keeping with the provisions of the Electoral Act, and INEC elections guidelines, this has foreclosed the possibility of a rerun in those areas.

“This position has also been publicly affirmed by INEC. These were areas where INEC, in all bizarreness, called for a rerun today, which have again been stalemated given the violent confiscation of election materials by agents of the unpopular APC.

“The total results from the eleven electoral wards in Isu LGA as now fully published on the INEC Result Viewing Portal show that the PDP candidate, Hon. Modestus Abazie Osakwe, polled a total of 5,551 and won in six electoral wards to defeat the APC candidate who scored 4,954. You can quickly visit the iREV to confirm this.

“Our party, therefore, urges INEC to obey the law and its guidelines by immediately announcing the result of the Isu State Constituency election in Imo State which has since been incontrovertibly won by PDP.”