No voting in Ngige’s stronghold

■ APC candidate threatens to reject results

From CHIDI NNADI and EMMANUEL UZOR, Anambra
The All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate, Senator Chris Ngige has said he will not accept any result from Idemili North council area of the state following what he termed election irregularities.
He alleged that violence and other electoral malpractices marred yesterday’s governorship election in Idemili North and South believed to be his stronghold.
He said; “Well the process here is okay (Alo), there are some challenges in my ward and I have reports from other centres but the most worrisome is from Idemili North where as at 1:30 p.m. voting materials were yet to arrive in so many places and even when they started bringing the materials around 2p.m, there were no result sheets and in some places hoodlums and thugs took the result sheets and in other places, INEC hid the result sheets.
“Idemili North has over 180, 000 voters, the highest in the whole state, is about three local government areas in one, Obosi alone has 47, 000 registered voters while some local governments have 47, 000, so Obosi and its confluent town or settlements of Enekwesumpu, Odume, Awada, Ugwuagba can, equate a local government population, so nothing has happened there and I’m told that some people were voting in one hotel in Obosi, we are yet to see that, we are yet to see the result but I am not happy, it is hope betrayed, I had hoped that this election will be smooth in all aspects so that we will be able to congratulate whoever is the winner and as you can see, they have targeted my area of strength, Idemili North, they have starved them of materials, people have gone home having stayed about eight hours. Some other areas like Abatete and places like Ogidi they visited with violence and snatched result sheets and ballot boxes.
“They transposed some materials to other places, even some materials for Oraukwu were seen at Nkpor but these are deliberate to cause confusion and they have succeeded in causing confusion, if you go to Awka, the areas of the GRA, wards 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, they starved them of materials because they have looked at the voting pattern, Ngige has been winning there anytime, so they attacked them and starved them of materials, the same goes for Idemili South, some names are not in the voters’ registers anymore even though the voters registers were given two weeks to the election and their names were there, so it is worrisome but it makes some of us to say that Nigeria still has a long way to go.
“We will not accept any result that comes out of Idemili North now, it is now suspect, we cannot accept any result that comes from Idemili North, even if I win, how can I win, they are not conducting any election and we are asking for bye-election tomorrow, let us do bye-election. Awka South, the areas that didn’t vote should vote, they called me that they have waited for eight hours, so this is the position and we don’t know. From the local governments, I learnt that the materials came late and some parts of Ogbaru, we also heard that in Nnewi South, our agents were chased away. There is no way the election result will be the true reflection of the voters’ wishes and we saw this coming and we made report to the INEC chairman and we hold him by his words.”