Uche Nwosu, a former Imo State Chief of Staff, has said that senior staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the South East, are truly partisan, adding that they belong to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Nwosu’s claim is in line with a similar allegation earlier made by the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodinma.
Nwosu said that INEC must stop using University Vice Chancellors as State Returning Officers by the Commission, stressing that their performances, especially in the last election, showed that they were not committed to the credibility of the process.
The former governorship candidate of the Action Alliance, AA, in the last general election, while backing Uzodinma’s assertion, added that he was a victim of the partisanship of the INEC Staff.
Recall that Senator Hope Uzodinma had alleged that all the INEC senior Staff serving in the Southeast possess the membership card of the main opposition party.
Nwosu, the son-in-law to the immediate past governor of the State, Rochas Okorocah, claimed, “INEC senior Staff in the Southeast is truly partisan. They belong to the PDP and that informs what happened in the Imo State governorship election.”
He went on to explain that the Imo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, compromised the process during the polls so that they can return Emeka Ihedioha, the candidate of the PDP.
Nwosu advised that to ensure free and fair elections in the region, INEC must change the REC in Imo and others in the Southeast States.
According to Nwosu, “The 2019 Imo State governorship election was one of the biggest frauds perpetrated by Staff of the Commission. A few hours before the election, for instance, the REC swapped the trained Adhoc Staff for the election with those he handpicked from Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Anambra State, the majority of them were from Mbaise where the PDP candidate came from.”
He claimed that “they were able to allocate him humongous votes from the three Council Areas of Aboh Mbaise, Ahiazu, and Ezinihitte. INEC Staff also altered results from what was collated at the polling units arbitrarily to favour the PDP candidate, they truly worked for the PDP in the last election.”
The former AA governorship candidate, who claimed to have won the election, after Iheadioha was declared the winner, added that, “INEC should review the idea of using Vice-Chancellors as Returning Officers because their actions have shown that they are not committed to the process and more so, they are not accountable to the Commission. They know that after announcing whatever result they want, their duty ends and they return to their Universities not minding the problem they have created.
He alleged that in the case of Imo State, the Returning Officer and Vice-Chancellor of Michael Opara Federal University of Agriculture, Prof. Francis Otunta, a Professor of Mathematics, declared the PDP’s Ihedioha, as the winner of the election “even though he did not meet the spread as provided in the Constitution.”
