The governor said that because of the similarity in the names of Prof. Nnenna Nnannaya-Oti and the LP candidate, he understood that her treatment would be “unfair.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) returning officer for the state’s recently ended March 18 governorship election, Prof. Nnenna Nnannaya-Oti, was criticised by Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State on Thursday for treating all candidates fairly.
Speaking on the Politics Today show on Channels Television, Ikpeazu said that Nnannaya-Oti was “clearly pleased” because she “favoured” the Labour Party (LP).
In addition, the departing governor said that before the election, he had done some background checks on the returning officer and reported to INEC that she wouldn’t be impartial in the voting process but had received assurances from the electoral umpire.
Nnannaya-Oti, vice chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, announced the outcome of the Abia gubernatorial election on March 22.INEC made the announcement after it started putting together the official results of the gubernatorial election in Umuahia, the state capital, more than 48 hours after it had stopped doing so in the south-eastern state.
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Okey Ahiwe of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Enyinnaya Nwafor of the Young People’s Party were only a couple of the opponents the LP candidate easily defeated (YPP). Nwafor received 28,972, Ahiwe 88,529, and Otti 175,467. In addition, the LP candidate took 10 of the state’s 17 local government districts, while the PDP took home six and the YPP one.
On March 28, a week later, the returning officer said she was intimidated and under pressure to rig the election, but she refused to give up.
When asked to respond to the returning officer’s accusations, Ikpeazu, whose candidate and party member Ahiwe lost the poll, called Nnannaya-Statement Oti’s “unfortunate.”
“This is terribly regrettable,” the outgoing governor stated. Because these findings came from the units, were gathered at the wards, were gathered at the local governments, and were presented for her to just add them up and proclaim, if that professor is even qualified to call herself a professor, I am startled. I haven’t even seen her.
I haven’t spoken to her or met her before. Let her come forward and confirm my encounter with her if I have spoken to her. I am thus surprised that she is making a fuss about nothing.
I was aware that she would be unfair.
Moreover, Ikpeazu claimed that because of the similarity between the returning officer’s name and that of the LP candidate, he knew she would be “unfair.”
I reported to INEC that this person was not going to be fair when I first saw the name coincidence and began to learn more about her past, but they told me that they had profiled her. I am still in disbelief, he added.
“What she has disclosed in the wake of her service or stewardship in Abia suggests that she is obviously pleased with what she accomplished, and her level of prejudice in that respect may be viewed as being in favour of a party.
She has admitted that she had a plan before arriving, which is a betrayal.
