The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Enugu State, Frank Nweke, has reacted to the outcome of the governorship and state assembly election of last Saturday.
He submitted that the polls in the state were far from what could be considered fair and transparent, as it was characterised by violence, and thuggery among others.
Nweke, as gathered by Naija News, took to the micro-blogging platform, Twitter on Friday, to express his disappointment in the whole process, while describing it as an assault on democracy.
Nweke, in a statement on his Twitter, asserted that the election was marred by “a multitude of infringements on our democratic process, an assault on our desires, and our hope for our great state.”
He also alleged that some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) helped some agents of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the election while offering cash or issuing threats as the situation demanded.
The APGA chieftain as well accused both the PDP and Labour Party of vote buying, saying “with as little as N500 or packets of noodles in some places.”
According to him, “The entire process, down to the declaration of its winner, is a complete farce and will lack legitimacy for as long as it stands.
“The results of Nkanu East local government area, which were contested, got reviewed and revised by the national office of INEC without any basis given for the change in numbers. If it was a case of over-voting, the expectation is that the result from the local government area should have been cancelled.
“It does seem that the numbers were simply manufactured to fit a preprogrammed outcome and read out to the public, as can be inferred from the Returning Officer of INEC in the state, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe’s comments about acting under the authority and reading out what he had been given.
“I am utterly disappointed with the manner in which the Independent National Electoral Commission handled the 2023 elections. I am also saddened by the actions of some members of our security agencies. Both of these institutions of state let the people down when they became compromised by a few desperate power mongers and looters.”
It would be recalled that on Wednesday, INEC declared the candidate of the PDP, Peter Mbah, who scored 160,895 votes to defeat his opponents as the winner of the Enugu State governorship elections.
The Labour Party’s Chijioke Edeoga scored 157,552, Nweke got 17,983 votes to come third in the race, while the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Uche Nnaji, was fourth, with 14,575 votes