JUST IN: PDP candidate, Onu Accuses INEC of Sabotage

Barrister Silas Onu, the Peoples Democratic Party candidate for Ebonyi South Senatorial Zone accuses the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Ebonyi State of sabotage.

He also accused the electoral body of subtly stalling and stifling his moves to file a petition in court against the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Anthony Ani, who was declared the winner of the election.

Onu, who made the allegation on Thursday in Abakaliki while addressing journalists, claimed that the normal charge of N10 for a page of Certified True Copy by the INEC has been increased to N300 by the electoral body on purpose to deter him from filing the petition.

He said, “After INEC in Ebonyi connived to bring an insane court action against me, leading to a bizarre judgment delivered two days to election, they are now actively ensuring that we do not get the electoral materials necessary for filing our petition.

“We applied for CTC and since then, it has been one story to another. They charged N300 per page for CTC, while that amount for CTC is and has remained N10 per page. Then they sent a private account number of one Ibrahim for the payment of the N300 per page for CTC. We have refused to pay and they aren’t showing up to discharge their duty.

“We have to put this out for the public to see how INEC now has become fully and unpretentiously partisan in the discharge of their duty.

“The HOD legal and the legal officer in charge cannot be above the law and we know precisely what to do in this circumstance.”

During the bye-election on Saturday, February 3, Onu accused the APC of ballot snatching, multiple thumb-printing and vote-buying, adding that he had to leave his polling unit after voting because of what he described as provocative activities allegedly carried out by the APC in the presence of INEC officials.

Onu had said, “It is probably bye and not an election. That is what we are seeing, especially in Ohaozara local government area. There is no election. The former governor who has vowed he must win; when you hear somebody say he must win, he is using thugs, compelling people to vote.

“In fact, they are holding people’s hands to thumbprint. When you vote for PDP, they will thumbprint for another party to invalidate it.”

He continued, “Apart from that, they have been snatching ballot boxes. I do not know what they want to do with it but because the election petition tribunal or the Supreme Court has said BVAS is of no use, they are now carrying ballot boxes, going somewhere to thumbprint, not caring what accreditation figures in BVAS will say. Of course, they will get the result sheet, write the accreditation figure, write their result and move on.”

However, when contacted, INEC’s Head of Voter Education in the state, Dr. Christian Elekwa, who denied knowledge of the allegations, said he was not the right person to speak on the matter but the Legal Department of the commission.

When contacted for a reaction, INEC’s Head of the Legal Department in the state, Ibrahim Obiahu, described the PDP candidate’s allegations as untrue and baseless.

Obiahu said, “It’s not true. That’s not true. Even though I shouldn’t speak on this; but it’s not true.”