OBONG Umana Umana is the governorship candidate for the All Progressives Congresss, APC, in Akwa Ibom State.In this interview, Umana alleges irregularities in the just concluded governorship elections and vows to seek redress in the court of law. Excerpts:By Dapo Akinrefon and Charles KumoluThe March 28 and April 11 general elections have come and gone. You seem not to be satisfied with the conduct of the polls in your state, Akwa Ibom, what exactly happened?The reports we received from Lagos and other states in the South West, in the North, those reports were encouraging. We could say that elections were properly conducted, it was peaceful, nobody was molested and harassed. Voting was properly done, results announced at the polling units as provided for in the guidelines. In some other parts of the country, the election went very well and I am not surprised. I must say that in my own state, unfortunately, it has been a different story.What is the story?When we had the presidential elections in March 28, there was a deliberate plan to subvert the will of the people. This plan was systematically executed through the deliberate removal of sensitive electoral materials allegedly by officials of INEC in connivance with PDP officials, agents and officials of the state government.Umana UmanaOn March 28, what we experienced was that in all the polling units, result sheets had been removed. I went to myunit to vote and my party agent explained to me that when he asked to see the result sheets, the presiding officer told him that the electoral officer had taken the result sheets away.We know our our rights and so my party agent insisted that if the materials are incomplete, there is no wayyou can even commence the process of accreditation. If you vote and at the end the results cannot be properly recorded or someone else had already filled the result, then it would have been a futile exercise going through accreditation. The guidelines had stipulated that all the materials must be complete before the election can commence.I personally raised an alarm when I discovered that we did not have result sheet and I confronted the electoral officer of my local government who told me he was going to look into it. After 30 minutes, they brought something to my polling unit which turned out to be photocopies and not the original result sheets.Apparently, they had filled them up already and there was no way he could bring them. So, that was the experience in my own unit and it was not isolated. We had set up a situation room to monitor what was happening across the state and we discovered that the situation was across the state.The result sheets had been removed and so, we could not have elections on March 28 because what followed was protest by the voters who said they could not have elections without result sheets. That did not stop INEC from announcing results the following day. Collation did not take anywhere in Akwa Ibom in March 28.That was what happened in the presidential and National Assembly elections in March 28.Again, there was incidence of thuggery and violence. Some persons were killed and the police appeared to be helpless. Even when you called the police, nothing was done. So. My party took a position that the elections were totally flawed and results allocated.We protested and our party requested for the redeployment of Resident Electoral Commissioner and the Commissioner of Police. We gave our reasons but unfortunately, that was not done and if you study the results of March 28, you will know that the figures allocated were simply fictitious, it had nothing to do withthe way people voted or the way people would have voted because they were not allowed to vote. Figures were just allocated.Before the elections, people were aware of the strong presence and strength of the APC in Akwa Ibom. They just sat down and wrote results and claimed that the PDP won the presidential elections with over 1 million votes, while they allocated some thousands of votes to the APC. Those figures were simply allocated.But did you suspect any foul play prior the elections and did you forward your petition to the relevant authorities?Yes we did. You see, my party received intelligence one month before the elections that a governor had allegedly procured 400 brand new buses and that police uniforms were being sewed and that thugs were been assembled, that the thugs would be provided with guns and police uniforms and that they would be used to terrorize voters on Election Day.We got the intelligence, we raised an alarm and we wrote a petition to the appropriate authorities but unfortunately nothing happened.So, after the presidential elections, we protested and the response we got was that an Assistant Inspector General of Police was posted to Akwa Ibom alongside two Commissioners of Police. We then thought that with that response from the authorities, that the elections of April 11 would be different but it is sad to say that things got worse.There was a total failure of security. The conspiracy we had witnessed on March 28 also repeated itself on April 11 and the difference between March 28 and April 11 was that the electoral officers went through the notion of pretending that electoral materials had been released in the presence of party agents so that theywould have the record that materials had been released.Immediately the adhoc INEC staff took delivery of the materials, as soon as they stepped out of the INEC office, they were attacked by thugs wearing police uniforms, moving around in the buses allegedly procured by the government. They attacked and the materials taken away. I was not spared even as the governorship candidate of the APC. The materials meant for my unit had been hijacked, as governorship candidate, I could not vote because the materials had been hijacked by bands of thugs. These things were done in such a brazen manner.Were these irregularities restricted to areas where the APC had strengths or it was widespread?It was widespread because the APC was strong and on the ground. Like I sad earlier, we set up a situation room and people were sending text messages to the situation room from their various polling units. I also received some of the text messages which I forwarded to the AIG Adisa Bolanta who promised to investigate.This went beyond elections, it was an organised crime against the people of my state. This was state terrorism. We did not have elections in Akwa Ibom state and the perpetrators of these crime should face justice in the International Criminal, Court. This was not about elections. The example in Akwa Ibom is thatthe only way you can become a governor is that you must have a private army to terrorize people on Election Day.It is not about me, but if that is the message, then we can imagine what would happen in the future when other people also set up their private armies, if it becomes clear that that is the only way to become governor. That is the legacy they are leaving behind in Akwa Ibom state and it is indeed very sad.What is your next step?We are going to court to challenge the results because we could not have had results when we did not haveelections.Another way to prove that we did not have elections is that we did not have have collation of results in the ward and local governments.Have you consulted with the national leadership of your party on this?They are aware. They have all the facts and they have instructed us to challenge the results in court because the position of my party is that we did not have elections in Akwa Ibom and Rivers.
No comments:
Post a Comment