The Coalition of United Political Parties has described the video of a man who was allegedly caught with a written result sheet of the postponed presidential and National Assembly elections in Abia State as fabricated and untrue.
A video of a man identified only as Gaius confessing that he owned a file containing some sensitive documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission, including a written result sheet that reportedly favoured the Peoples Democratic Party in the postponed elections, has been trending on social media since last Friday.
In the video, the suspect also said he was ordered by one Mr Chinenye Nwaogu, a Special Assistant to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu on Youths, to deliver the result to the INEC office in the state.
The video has raised a lot of questions in the state.
But the chairman of the CUPP in the state, Okereke Emmanuel, on Wednesday in Umuahia, told The Punch Newspaper, that the video was a product of cheap political blackmail aimed at creating tension in the state.
He said, “The written result sheet of the postponed presidential and National Assembly elections in Abia State is simply a case of giving a dog a bad name in order to kill it.
“We have done our investigations and found out that the so-called prepared result sheet does not exist and we have evidence to that effect.
“Don’t forget that we are in the electioneering period and any political party can come up with any gimmick to attract voters to their side. Don’t be surprised if they say another candidate in the election is not from Abia State, so anybody can do anything to outsmart the other.
“There are over 73 political parties fielding candidates in the presidential election, but in that document it was only four political parties that were represented, so it is the feeble-minded that can believe such blackmail.
“That same paper that they are talking about was only a computer printout, but the norm in elections is that at the state of collation of results, the votes are written down with pencil or pen.”
Okereke urged political parties in the state to run issue-based campaigns devoid of electoral rascality.
“My advice to politicians is that they should not forget that after the elections, we will remain Abia State indigenes and we must place the interest of the state above every other thing. There is a limit they should not cross just because they want to attract votes to themselves during the elections,” he said.
He called on the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state to remain neutral and ensure free, fair and credible polls in the state.
Okereke said, “As critical stakeholders in Abia State, we will continue to keep INEC and security agencies on their toes to ensure that we will have free, fair and credible elections in the country.
“We are also calling on INEC in the state to ensure that all political parties fielding candidates in the elections get their full agent tags.
“Before the election was postponed, it was only the agents of the All Progressives Congress that got their full agent tags, while the agents of other political parties got little or nothing. INEC should ensure that the tags are evenly distributed to agents of all the political parties in the state to avoid rigging the election.”
