The Abia State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress has called for the immediate reshuffling of the Independent National Electoral Commission ad-hoc staff ahead of the April 11 governorship and House of Assembly polls.The APC Chairman in the state, Donatus Nwankpa who made the call at a press conference on Monday in Umuahia, said this had become necessary following widespread irregularities that characterised the presidential election.
He said that the APC would vigorously resist any attempt to repeat result falsification in favour of the ruling party as allegedly witnessed in the Presidential and National Assembly polls.
Nwankpa who accused the ruling Peoples Democratic Party of using the Transition Committee Chairmen at the council areas to doctor the results of the poll, called for the cancellation of all National Assembly results in the state.
He threatened that the party would announce its own result if INEC failed to heed the call and make public the original results obtained at the various polling units which he alleged were manipulated at the collation centres.
Nwankpa also called for the discontinuation of the use of council headquarters as collation centres during the forthcoming polls, alleging that agents of opposition parties were denied access to the centres while the TC chairmen colluded with some allegedly compromised INEC ad-hoc staff to subvert the people’s will.
The APC, however, restated confidence in the use of card readers, saying that it had significantly helped in eliminating electoral fraud but regretted that results were tampered with at the collation centres.
Present at the press briefing were the governorship candidate of the party, Chief Nyerere Anyim; a member of APC Board of Trustees, Chief Sam Nkire; former Deputy Governor, Chief Chris Akomas; and a former governorship candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria, Paul Ikonne.
