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Ahead of tomorrow’s elections and the rerun of the Anambra State
central senatorial election, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has
warned its opponents to henceforth play by the rules or face its wrath.
Victor Umeh, the party’s national chairman, at a press briefing
on Saturday said that APGA’s peaceful disposition despite being the party in
power in Anambra State had been misconstrued as weakness by their opponents
whom he accused of contravening the Electoral Law in a desperate bid to win.
“Enough is enough. APGA has decided that on Tuesday unless the
election is conducted according to the law, this place will be difficult to
manage and we urge all political parties to go by the laws of the country. Any
ad-hoc staff or party member who has been bribed to rig the election should
have a rethink,” Mr Umeh said.
His outburst was informed by an allegation that many card
carrying members of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) worked as ad-hoc staff
of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in some parts of the
state in the first round of election which resulted in PDP winning the
senatorial seats in the south and north of the state amidst what he described
as gross irregularities and manipulations which his party is challenging.
He claimed that APGA had compiled a list of such politicians who
worked as electoral officers, polling officers, or returning officers and where
they worked which the party had forwarded to the chairman of INEC, Attahiru
Jega in a formal petition.
Prominent and fraudulent
He accused some prominent citizens of Anambra North and Central
of masterminding electoral fraud. “We have taken a holistic look on the roles
played by these people and we’re no longer ready to condone such acts. That’s
why we are addressing the media today to tell the nation that APGA is not a
weak party and that the fact that we obey the constitution does not make us
weak,” Mr Umeh said.
The party demanded that INEC should ensure that no political
party member is allowed to work as its ad-hoc staff on Tuesday and that it
should not ignore any reports of missing election materials. APGA also called
on the police to deal with election riggers even as it passed a vote of no
confidence on the police over their conduct in the already held elections.
While governorship election will not hold in Anambra State as
the incumbent governor’s tenure expires in 2014, the senatorial rerun election
will hold between former information and communications minister Dora Akunyili
of APGA and former state governor Chris Ngige of the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN) alongside state House of Assembly elections.
