THE heat generated by the elections in Akwa Ibom State is gradually cooling off. A host of non indigenes, who out of fear, travelled out with their families have returned to resume their normal businesses in the state.However, the controversies trailing the polls have remained. Opposition parties are still challenging the conduct and outcome of the March 28 Presidential and National Assembly polls as well as the April 11 Governorship and State House of Assembly elections. They are claiming that there was no election in Akwa Ibom due to irregularities/malpractice and violence that characterized the entire process. Now accusations and counter-accusations are the order of the day between the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and major opposition parties especially the All Progressives Congress (APC).This is coming as the electorate in Ukanafun state constituency go to the polls on Saturday following the death of the APC candidate, Obong Okon Uwah, who was allegedly murdered by political thugs from the area some weeks before the general elections.The APC and Accord Party, in separate petitions to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Attahiru Jega, accused the PDP of conniving with INEC officials and the Police in the state to rig the polls.APC petitionAkwa Ibom APC Chairman, Dr. Amadu Attai, in the petition, called on Jega to cancel the elections because they were marred by fraud and malpractices such as non supply of election materials to most polling unitsacross the senatorial districts, hijack and snatching of ballot boxes, and violence.Attai had said: “In areas where polling materials were received hordes of deadly armed thugs escorted by men in Nigeria Police Uniform stormed the polling units and made away with the election materials midway into accreditation. For instance in Ndiya 3 Unit 004 in Nsit Ubium which happens to be the polling unit of our governorship candidate, election materials were supplied but thugs invaded the place and took away ll the election materials.“Given the widespread failure of the INEC to supply election materials to most parts of the state, the rampant snatching of ballot boxes and the blood letting by PDP thugs that characterised the conduct of the elections, we as a party hereby call for an outright cancellation of the elections. Their outcomes cannot be allowed to stand because they can never reflect the wishes of Akwa Ibom people.”Victor Attah concursObong Victor Attah, former governor of the state and a member of the PDP Board of Trustees, told newsmen in Uyo that he had a nasty experience during the said polls.His words: “I got to my unit a little before 10 am that fateful day with my PVC in my hand and I looked round and the whole place was empty. Except for the people who came out to vote I did not see any INEC staff. The story I got is not a matter of hijacking on the way to this unit but at the distribution centre that people came with guns and machetes and shot in the air and carted away all of the materials and I said including even your card readers? And the answer was yes.“And this issue of shooting and attacking people and carting away materials including card readers, what does anybody want to do with card readers? They want to use it to accredit who? We used to understand that they take away ballot papers and thumb printing and so on but now you did not even allow accreditation to take place.“So my appeal which I have made to everybody that is prepared to listen is to accept the fact that truly there were no elections whatsoever in this state. I am not talking about my unit. I am talking about cancelling the election in Akwa Ibom and conducting a fresh one as soon as INEC finds it possible so that all eyes will be beamed on Akwa Ibom, and people will now be forced to do proper elections. It is now I am beginning to understand why Akwa Ibom was regarded as battle ground. But I didn’t come to fight. I came to do an election.”There were elections in Akwa Ibom –Gov Akpabio, PDP leadersHowever the outgoing governor and Akwa Ibom Nort-West Senator-elect, Obong Godswill Akpabio and other PDP stakeholders have debunked the allegations that there was no election in the state.The governor after receiving his Certificate of Return alongside other National Assembly candidates and the Governor-elect, Udom Emmanuel, last Thursday, at the INEC office, denied bribing the INEC officials and countered claims that the elections were characterized by irregularities.Rather, Akpabio accusing Police of conniving with the opposition to foment trouble during the April 11 election in the state.His words: “The Police brought an AIG to Akwa Ibom who came with commissioners of police. The instruction was that the command has changed at the centre and that anybody who wants promotion must support the APC. At the end, they went from house to house searching the houses of my commissioners.“In Ibiono Ibom they ransacked the house of Ignatius Edet. In Ibesikpo Asutan, they ransacked the house of anybody related to government. The same police opened fire on an innocent child and the person is in the hospital today. They went to Essien Udim and shot into the air. The idea was to leave the impression that there was no election in Akwa Ibom or that there was violence.“I am saying it today in the public so that the IG will hear and mention it in the council of state meting so that other heads of government will know that, that is not the way to use security in this country. They should have provided a level playing field but they turned things around with propaganda that PDP were the people causing trouble in Akwa Ibom.”The governor, who spoke against the backdrop of reports sent to Abuja by AIG Adisa Bolanta on what transpired on Election Day, however, commended the INEC on the conduct of the election and urged those with grievances to seek redress at the tribunal.Why PDP won – stakeholdersPDP stakeholders attributed the party’s landslide victory at the polls to the fact that Akwa Ibom has remained a PDP state since 1999.Chief Nduesse Essien, former Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development while leading a delegation of Eket Senatorial Leaders Forum on a thank you visit to Governor Akpabio, said the zoning of the governorship slot to Eket Senatorial district contributed to the success of the PDP at the polls saying that many Akwa Ibom people saw it as fair and just since the district has not produced a governor since the creation of the state in 1987.“With the agreement on zoning, the track record of achievements and God-fearing disposition of the PDP candidate as well as a firmly rooted political platform such as PDP, it was not surprising that the people came all out to support and vote for Mr. Udom Emmanuel,” he said.PDP cannot claim genuine victory –Accord PartyHowever, the Legal consultant to Accord Party in the state, Barr Mfon Peters, disagreed with PDP leaders’’ claims that they won elections because Akwa Ibom is predominantly a PDP state.“There were no elections in Akwa Ibom. What transpired in the entire elections were irregularities and violence. The situation where hundreds and thousands of the eligible voters were disenfranchised were enough reasons for INEC to have cancelled elections in Akwa Ibom but it did not do that.“The CNPP wrote a protest letter to INEC Chairman and copied the Resident Electoral Officer, Okojie, to cancel the result. Governorship candidate of Accord Party, Bishop Akpan wrote a similar letter to INEC and I am aware that the APC openly protested and also wrote a letter to INEC even before the result was announced but Jega looked the other way. That Akwa Ibom has been a PDP state does not mean that things cannot change. If we could have change at the National level how much more Akwa Ibom that has been clamouring for change after eight years of misrule? Change was imminent and clear in Akwa Ibom.“I challenge the INEC Chairman, Jega, and all electoral officials, to call for fresh election in Akwa Ibom and let him come himself with other 12 RECS with adequate security drafted to this state and let us see how PDP will win elections in Akwa Ibom. It is a challenge”Meanwhile the aggrieved candidates especially those that contested the National Assembly and Governorship positions and mostly from the APC have gone to the Election Petition tribunal to challenge the outcome of the elections.
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