LP won Enugu governorship poll but INEC sold out –Edeoga
by Our reporter
The governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Enugu State during the just concluded general elections, Chijioke Edeoga, a journalist, lawyer, and former member, House of Representatives, one time local government chairman and erstwhile Commissioner in the state opens up for the first time
after the election in which he alleged he won but was rigged out. In this interview with KENNETH OFOMA, Edeoga gave his impression about the election and how the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) allegedly aided the PDP to deny him his deserved victory, which he said he will reclaim at the Election Petition Tribunal
Many people would want to know how you received the outcome of the governorship election in Enugu State in which you participated as the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP)?
Thank you so much. You know on the run up to the governorship election, we had the National Assembly and Presidential elections. In the presidential election the Labour Party performed very well.
The LP Presidential candidate performed very well in Enugu State. I think we recorded more than 80 per cent success. Most of the votes
cast in Enugu State were cast for LP.And the National Assembly elections which went on concurrently, out of the eight House of Representatives seats LP won seven clearly
and convincingly; out of the two senatorial positions that were contested that day because one was postponed owing to the death of Oyibo Chukwu, LP won one convincingly, in fact, defeating the incumbent governor of Enugu state, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi with a margin of more than 50,000 votes.
So, before the governorship election it has been established clearly that LP had become the dominant party in Enugu State, torpedoing PDP and ending the 24 years rule
of PDP in Enugu State. So on the run up to that governorship election which was postponed for reasons which we don’t know, INEC said they have to do some configurations; but it is becoming clear now that it is most likely that
INEC was part of the arrangement to undermine the Labour Party and dissipate its energy.So we went into that elections
with very high hopes knowing the amount of work we had done in Enugu State since August 4 when I became the flag bearer of Enugu State, knowing the goodwill that was following us and following the LP, knowing that for a long time there has been significan desire for change in Enugu State, plus the perceived wisdom Igbo people not to accept monotony, they see change as a veritable part of life.So for a very long time the decision to try another party, try another thing has been there in Enugu state and in fact all over Nigeria.
In the South East the anger against PDP was also accentuated by the decision of the PDP not to zone the presidency to the South-East,
which most Nigerians felt was normal and logical and reasonable. so there was sufficient ground for people in Enugu State and most
of the South-East to be angry with
PDP.
So we went into that election of March 18 with very high hopes that we were going to win and of course we won. And when results were coming in 16 LGAs had come in out of 17 and LP was winning clearly with more than 11,000 votes, then the results came in after a very long delay, the last to come in from Nkanu East where the PDP governorship candidate is from and it is one of the LGAs that is closest to the secretariat where the results were being collated and for reasons which are now obvious, it was the last to come.The farthest LGAs like Uzo-Uwani, like Awgu and Aninri had also come in long ago, so they kept it last and
then when the result came in we noticed that between INEC and PDP a whopping 30,000 votes was given to the Labour Party. And the Returning Officer, Prof Iwe was not minded to
announce that because it was clearly
out of sync with voters that were accredited, it was out of sync with the BVAS report. So notwithstanding the prodding from the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Enugu State, Dr. Chukwu that he should announce it, the man refused to announce it and the matter went to Abuja.So when the matter went to Abuja, many people I was informed, were rushing to Abuja to go and influence that matter one way or the other but
I refused to do that, I felt that the matter was a straightforward matter, that the rules are clear. If there are areas of over voting, for instance
units where there are over voting, those units should be cancelled, that’s what the law said.
So I thought why ‘I am I bothering myself, the law will automatically apply.’ In Abuja they have patriots, you know, that the law will apply. Maybe I sense that my belief in the Nigerian system is still high or maybe a bit of naivety, but I just took it for granted that the law will automatically apply and I need not go
to Abuja to beg anybody or canvass anything, that the matter speaks for itself. There was clearly over voting in Nkanu East, 15,000 people were captured by BVAS, by accreditation and it was not even an isolated act because it went on simultaneously with the senatorial election, with the House of Assembly election, and the governorship election. All these ones were consistent with 15,000 accreditation. So I felt that there is no need to go to Abuja; anybody who will interrogate the matter will just arrive at the correct decision which is to cancel the points of over voting and return.
But eventually, two or three days after, the decision from Abuja was that about 15,000 or thereabout should be shelved from the total allocated to PDP and announced the 3,000 lead by PDP over LP. My reaction was not
violent or anything, just a bit of disappointed, you know, my response, my reaction, my gut feeling was that of utter disappointment and utter betrayal even by persons which I leant but
were associated, who became part of the committee to review the Enugu election; just a sense of utter disappointment.
