Imo North rerun: APC leaders force INEC to postpone election

Leaders and youths of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo State Friday barricaded the state headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with a truck load of laterite parked right in front of the main entrance of the Commission in protest of alleged manipulation of INEC officials by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
The heavy duty truck which impeded vehicular traffic through the main entrance obstructed distribution of electoral materials, and consequently forced INEC to postpone the rerun election.
Leading the protest were the Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations), Mr. Kingsley Uju; the Special Adviser to the Governor on Youths, Mr. Kenneth Emelu; the Commissioner for Works, Mrs. Josephine Udoji; Special Adviser to the governor (Technical), Hon. Ikenna Emeh and several other Commissioners and functionaries of the Imo State government.
The scene was picture of tension and chaos with some of the protesters vandalizing vehicles parked around the vicinity of the INEC state office. It took the intervention of mobile policemen and soldiers to restore relative order to the area.
Briefing newsmen, the Administrative Secretary of INEC, Mr. Chinedu Evurunobi announced the indefinite postponement of the election due to security reasons and the inability of the Commission to distribute electoral material owing to the tension and bedlam at the INEC headquarters in Owerri.
The Commander, 34 Brigade Obinze, Brigadier General Kay Ishiyaku and the Imo state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Taiwo Lakanu both came to the scene of the protest urging restraint.
Making his complaint earlier to the Army Commander, the Police Commissioner and a top INEC official; the Deputy Chief of Staff, Kingsley Uju among other things said that the APC leadership in the state was reliably informed of the moves by PDP to manipulate INEC and compromise the outcome of the re-run election.
Uju alleged that the six Electoral Officers (EOs) assigned for the election were PDP loyalists, adding that a certain staff of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO), who he said is a known PDP member, purportedly drew up the list for the Electoral Officers.
Uju further alleged that all the INEC adhoc staff were drawn from Enugu and Ebonyi states which he said are known PDP states.
While stressing that the APC in the state would prefer officials from the North or West to INEC officials drawn from PDP states, Uju also lamented that out of the three Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) supervising the re-run, two were from PDP states of Cross River and Ebonyi.
He particularly condemned the deployment of one Lawrence Nwuruku from Ebonyi State as REC in the election. He demanded that INEC must redress the situation before any credible election can hold in Imo State on Saturday.
Reacting to the allegations, INEC maintained that there were guidelines to the conduct of every election and the decision of the Commission was strictly guided by them. The state INEC official noted that they were only taking instructions from the INEC head office and not making them.
The spokesperson of the Commission in the state, Mrs. Ngozi Ben-Okpara, however, dismissed the allegations of manipulations and irregularities saying it would be impossible for any official of the commission to compromise the process and outcome of the re-run election.
“In any case, we have three RECs from Edo, Cross River and Ebonyi state and one National Commissioner from Abuja supervising this election. The bulk of the electoral officials in the field are INEC staff with staff number tags drawn from neighbouring states. And I can tell you that no staff of INEC would want to jeopardize his career by getting involved in any action capable of compromising the election particularly at this time every INEC personnel have been briefed on the resolve of the Commission to not only dismiss but to prosecute any INEC staff indicted in any case of election malpractice.”