Tobias Sylvester
Uche Nwosu, the governorship candidate of the Action Alliance (AA) and son-in-law to Imo’s incumbent governor, Rochas Okorocha, has rejected his loss at the Imo State governor election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), had on Monday declared Emeka Ihedioha of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner of Saturday’s governorship election in the state.
The election was fiercely contested among AA, All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) parties.
After so much tension that followed the exercise, Ihedioha, a former Deputy Speaker of the House of Reps polled 273,404 to defeat Nwosu, his closest rival who got a total of 190,364.
The candidate of the APGA, Ifeanyi Ararume came third with 114, 676 while Hope Uzodinma of the APC polled 96,458.
But in reaction, Nwosu argued that for one to be declared a winner of the election, he must have met the mandatory 25 percent spread in the votes, at least, in two-thirds of the number of local government areas where the election was held. He said:
“The constitution is clear that for a candidate to be declared a winner, he must have the mandatory 25 percent spread in at least two-thirds of the number of local government areas in the state.
“In this instance, the candidate of PDP did not meet the requirement as he scored the mandatory spread in only 12, whereas it should be 18.”
The AA candidate further claimed that there was a widespread irregularity in the three local government areas of Aboh Mbaise, Ahiazu and Ezinihitte.
“This result is totally unacceptable and I’m calling on INEC to declare the election inconclusive and arrange a fresh election within seven days as stipulated by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,”
Okorocha had ahead of the election vowed to ensure that Nwosu, who was his former Chief of Staff, succeeded him. He had gone as far as supporting Nwosu to pick the governorship ticket of AA after he failed to get the APC governorship ticket.
