AS criticisms continue to trail the declaration of the April 26 gubernatorial election in Imo State as inconclusive, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continue to lay claim to the election.
Both parties have asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare their candidate as the elected governor of the state, notwithstanding that the electoral body has fixed May 6 for a supplementary election in four local governments of the state.
Supporters of APGA's Rochas Okorocha, as well as those of the incumbent Governor Ikedi Ohakim and PDP candidate, at the weekend, continued to protest the decision of INEC to schedule a rerun for next Thursday in some areas where elections were deemed inconclusive.
They insisted that their preferred candidates be declared the winner.
A crowd of youths opposed the "inconclusive" pronouncement of the results, asked that APGA's Okorocha, who scored the highest number of declared votes, be returned.
Similarly, at the PDP secretariat in Owerri, the state chairman of the party, Chief Eze Duruiheoma (SAN), noted that although the party was ready for rerun, Ohakim had met all the requirements for victory, based on what they had at hand, and should be so returned.
In a statement by APGA its National Publicity Secretary, Bernard Akoma, copy of which was made available to The Guardian, the APGA wondered why some people do not want the Igbo heartland, Imo State, to exercise the right to choose their leaders, recalling that shenanigans of the PDP leaders had annulled APGA's victory during a phony repeat election in 2007.
Akoma disclosed that results of opinion polls independently conducted by credible organisations and media researchers clearly indicated an APGA victory at the governorship poll.
Part of the statement reads: "APGA fears a repeat of 2007 when the party was coasting home in the governorship poll only to be halted midway and the same Ohakim from nowhere was declared winner.
"We call on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to maintain the acclaimed integrity of the 2011 elections by ensuring that APGA is not robbed once again in Imo."
The party observed that what was happening in Imo reminds the nation of the better-to-be-forgotten days of Prof. Maurice Iwu, but expressed the hope that the conscientious clamour for credible electoral system would not allow the ruling party to conduct itself as the owner of the Nigerian nation.
While commending Imo citizens for not taking the laws into their hands, the APGA praised incumbent governors that lost elections and congratulated the winners, adding that Governor Ohakim should come down from his high horse by giving the people freedom of expression and emulating his counterparts from Oyo and Nasarawa States respectively.
However, the PDP, led by a party agent, Christopher Ariria, and a couple of the party members from Ohaji/Egbema, one of the councils where the elections were declared inconclusive, insisted that the results should be declared.
In the same vein, questions are being asked over undeclared results for the Okigwe North Federal Constituency. INEC had ordered a rerun in Ugiri-Oka and Ibeme wards in Isiala Mbano Local Council.
The PDP candidate at the poll, Chief Chikwem Onuoha, claimed that, based on records of the results collated in various wards in the constituency, he had scored the highest number of votes, followed by his Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) opponent and incumbent in the House of Representatives, Mathew Omegara, who also claimed victory.
Addressing journalists in Owerri at the weekend, Onuoha insisted that he polled 5,764 votes in the first election, scoring the highest figure before the issue of rerun came up.
He added that it was wrong for a newspaper (not The Guardian) to have named his opponent as having been declared winner, when there had not been any declaration from the INEC.
He said that result sheets, got from his agents at the ward level, indicated that he scored the highest figure of 2,894 in both rerun wards, to beat his opponent whom he said allegedly scored 1,231 votes.
According to a petition titled: "Request for the declaration of the Okigwe North Federal Constituency re-run election held in Ugiri-Oka and Ibeme wards," Onuoha, through his lawyer, Kissinger Ikeokwu, petitioned the INEC's Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Prof. Selina Oko, and copied the Commissioner of Police and the State Director of State Security Service (SSS).
He accused the Returning Officer in the poll, Dr. Kenneth Okoye, of absconding with two other officials from where and when they should have declared the result in the presence of every party agent and security officials.
The petition read in part: "Consequent upon the above, we are urging you to use your good offices to ensure that the results of Okigwe North Federal Constituency election held on the 26th April, 2011 in Ugiri-Oka and Ibeme wards are announced without further delay."
Source: Confusion In Imo: PDP, APGA Claim Victory (http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46555:confusion-in-imo-pdp-apga-claim-victory&catid=1:national&Itemid=559)