The governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, on Thursday lamented the
“unholy act” exhibited by political leaders in the South East zone
during the National Assembly elections, saying it has now robbed the
zone of the opportunity to produce either Senate President or the
Speaker of the House of Representatives in June.
All Senatorial and House of Representatives candidate of the All
Progressives Congress lost their elections in the elections held March
28.
The 15 senatorial districts in the five states, namely Anambra, Abia,
Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo were picked by the candidates of the Peoples
Democratic Party.
With the victory of Muhammadu Buhari from the North and his deputy,
Yemi Osinbajo, from the South West, the Senate President or Speaker of
the House slots would have ordinarily gone to the South East but for the
outcome of the elections.
Speaking in Owerri, the Imo State capital at a rally organised by the
South East APC to celebrate Mr. Buhari’s victory, Mr. Okorocha said the
zone should have elected a ranking senator or member of the House of
the Representatives on the platform of the party to occupy either of the
positions if PDP leaders from the zone had not engineered the rigging
of the National Assembly election held the same day with that of the
presidency.
He specifically noted that a serving senator and former governor of
Anambra State, Chris Ngige or a former senator, Osita Izunaso, both of
whom contested the election, would have been elected Senate President if
they were not rigged out at the election.
He said, “The South East is entitled to either the Senate President
or the Speaker of the Federal House. But as I speak to you now because
of the unholy act of last Saturday they (Igbo leaders) have not been
able to give us any ranking member of the Senate or ranking member of
the Federal House.
“You cannot be a Senate President, you cannot be a Speaker unless you
are somebody who has been there before. It is our plan that Osita
Izunaso should go to the Senate, Ngige should go to Senate.
“Gentlemen, the truth is that one of them should have been Senate
President of Nigeria. But our people, in their myopic thinking, in the
smallness of their brain could not see the light and today this act of
theirs has denied Ndigbo the Senate President, this act has denied
Ndigbo the Speaker of the Federal House. I weep, I weep that this kind
of thing can be allowed to happen here.”
Mr. Okorocha, who is a member of the APC, said political leaders in
the North do not play the kind of politics being exhibited by South East
leaders.
“This kind of thing could not happen in Kano, it could not happen in Sokoto,” he said.
“But here in Igbo land they use soldiers to kill their people. It is
our political leaders who sponsored this unholy act and we shall hold
them responsible for every blood dropped during this election.
“We know them and they know we know them. They can be having their
children abroad and be killing the poor people here. We will resist it
and we will say no. “
The governor alleged that the Igbo leaders that perpetrated the
rigging plans wanted to allocate 1.3 million votes to Mr. Jonathan in
Imo State “but for our resistance they could not do it”.
He stressed, “It is not true that anyone defeated Buhari in Imo
State. He won this election in this state. The nonsense is over. We have
the details of all that happened in INEC headquarters. It will be
embarrassing if we show all that happened to the world.”
Speaking earlier, Mr. Ngige recounted how he was rigged out of the
election in which he lost to a serving member of the House of
Representatives, Uche Ekwunife, of the PDP.
He explained that one of his agents was kidnapped during the election
and that the collation officers were not spared the ordeal.
He said although he lost the senatorial election, the emergence of Mr. Buhari as president-elect was a joy to him.
According to the former governor, “The only thing I want to assure
you people is that you have lost nothing. General Buhari has won the
election. APC will form the next national government. We are going to
recover all these seats, all the allocation they gave to us. All the
allocations they gave to us, they allocated to me 20 votes from Anambra
Central and Buhari 17, 960 votes, for the whole of Anambra. Is it
possible?
Mr. Izunaso, who is the national organising secretary of the APC,
vowed to reclaim the mandate given to him by the people of Orlu
Senatorial District but stolen by election riggers.
“We are not unmindful of that fact that what we produced in the South
East was not a reflection of the votes of the people,” he said.
“I assure you that it is not going to take long before all those
things will be corrected. Anambra results were rigged. For a man like
Ngige to come third on the ladder, is this the correct result?
“In Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, results were rigged, Imo results were
rigged. But I can assure you that is the end. As for my people in Orlu
Senatorial Zone who voted for me the victory that you gave me on
Saturday must remain our victory.
“I am not going to let any criminal to go away with the mandate you
gave to me freely. Out of 12 LGAs in Orlu Zone I won in 12 LGAs and
there were no elections in three zones.”
Credit: Premiumtimesng
No comments:
Post a Comment