The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has called for an urgent review of the 2023 election results in the Southeast region, citing instances of electoral malpractice and violence against their candidates.
The PCC alleges that elements of the Labour Party (LP) harassed APC candidates and manipulated the vote count to favor the LP. The PCC specifically highlighted the case of Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, the Deputy Chief Whip in the House of Representatives, representing Isiukwato/Umunneochi federal constituency, who allegedly suffered the worst of the electoral manipulation.
During a news conference held on Tuesday in Abuja, the Secretary of the Directorate of Agro and Commodities at the PCC, Retson Tedheke, demanded that the APC take steps to reclaim its allegedly stolen mandates. Tedheke suggested setting up a committee from the existing Presidential Campaign Council to review what transpired during the elections. Tedheke was joined by other chieftains of the party, including Comrade Okpokwu Ogenyi, the Convener of the Coalition for Good Governance and Change Initiative; Omonu Gowon-Nelson, the Lead Director of the Centre for Leadership Legacy International; and Hon. Abdullahi Bilal, the National Coordinator of the United Arewa Movement for Peace Good Governance.
The PCC accused the opposition parties of raising false alarms about the election results while claiming that the APC candidates were denied victory through rigging by the opposition political parties. The PCC expressed concerns about the party’s silence, adding that they intend to detail some of the shocking irregularities, abuses, and fraud that they have uncovered with concrete evidence during the presidential and national assembly elections in the next few weeks.
The PCC alleges that the LP candidate for Isiukwato/Umunneochi federal constituency, Amaobi Ogah, was not a bonafide member of the LP at the time of the party primary. Ogah joined the LP in June 2022, just four days before he contested the party primaries. Section 77 of the Electoral Act 2022 states that “each party is required to maintain a membership register in hard and soft copy and to make such register available to the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC not later than 30 days before the date fixed for primaries, congresses, and conventions.” As such, Ogah’s name was not on the register of the LP submitted to INEC in compliance with the requirements of the law and the Electoral Act 2022.
The PCC maintains that Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha and other APC candidates who contested on the platform were robbed of their mandates through widespread malpractices, vote suppression, and falsification of results as witnessed in the South East. The PCC called on the APC leadership at all levels to rise to the occasion and retrieve the stolen mandates. While Onyejeocha has approached the court to challenge the election results, the PCC believes that the APC must support her and other candidates in reclaiming their stolen mandates.
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