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The Labour Party governorship candidate in Abia, Alex Otti, has raised the alarm over alleged plot by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to manipulate some of the governorship election results in the state.
Otti flagged the incident in a series of tweets posted on his official Twitter page late night Saturday, March 18, 2023.
Pulse had predicted in this article that the governorship contest in Abia State would be a close fight between the ruling PDP, Labour Party, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), and the All Progressives Progressives (APC).
However, reports from the South-East state earlier in the day indicated that the Labour Party had their noses ahead of other political parties as results started trickling in from various polling units.
Otti, who claimed that virtually all the results uploaded and released so far had Labour Party winning by a landslide, alleged that the PDP government in the state led by Governor Okezie Ikpeazu was working in cahoots with some compromised INEC officials and security agents to manipulate results in some Local Governments.
He said the alleged act was being carried out in Obingwa which is Ikpeazu's Local Government, Osisioma, Aba North and Aba South where, according to him, Labour Party won overwhelmingly.
Otti claimed that INEC officials particularly in Obingwa have jettisoned the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to pave the way for the insertion of fake results.
The Labour Party candidate, therefore, called on the Federal Government and INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to ensure that only original election results are announced.
Otti's tweet read: "From virtually all the results uploaded and released, Labour Party won by landslide. Unfortunately the PDP government has refused to allow some of the results stand, and they are doing this with the active connivance of some compromised INEC Staff and some security agents.
"The LG involved are Obingwa where the outgoing governor is from, Osisioma,Aba north and Aba south where we won overwhelmingly.
"Obingwa is a very interesting case, because in the majority of the wards, with the active connivance of INEC the BIVAS was not used, so they are making effort to push in fake results.
"I want to use this opportunity to call on the Federal government and particularly the INEC chairman to ensure that the right thing is done in Abia state. So I expect that any result that is not coming out of BIVAS accreditation will not be accepted.
"I urge the INEC chairman to prevail on the INEC Resident electoral commissioner for Abia and other INEC staff to give peace a chance and ensure that the right thing is done."