The main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday laid bare the facts that called to question, the ruling by the Supreme Court which sacked its candidate, Emeka Ihedioha and replaced him with Hope Uzodinma of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as governor of Imo state; accusing the apex court of committing an electoral heist against the Imo people; by declaring the total number of valid votes cast far above the official number of accredited voters given by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC). In the view of the PDP, the Supreme Court verdict must be reviewed and reversed in the interest of Nigerian democracy and the credibility of INEC as the electoral umpire.
In rejecting the apex court verdict, the PDP in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that nothing; not even the cheap blackmail by governors of the ruling APC party would stop the PDP and millions of Nigerians from demanding a review and reversal of the judgment in which the Supreme Court manufactured and donated fictitious votes to Uzodinma who came in a distant fourth position in the poll; and then proceeded to declare him as the winner of the March 9, 2019 governorship election in Imo State.
The PDP challenged the Supreme Court and their APC co-travelers to explain to Nigerians how the Supreme Court, in its bid to award votes to APC, ended up declaring the total valid votes of 950,952; above the official INEC tally of 823,743 total number of accredited voters for the election in Imo state.
“Can the APC governors explain to Nigerians how and where the Supreme Court manufactured the extra 127,743 votes above the official number of accredited voters provided by the electoral umpire, INEC?. What can they say to the fact that the Supreme Court could not produce the details of the votes from each of the fictitious 388 polling units, upon which it based the ruling?
“Furthermore, can the APC governors explain why the Supreme Court summersaulted on its declaration on a host of cases, particularly the Atiku vs Buhari case, that for a petitioner to succeed in allegation of infraction of any provision of the Electoral Act, especially one complaining about malpractice, the petitioner must call witnesses polling unit by polling units?” The opposition party queried.
APC governors, PDP said, should therefore steer clear of the Imo State judgement as the PDP would never abandon its determination to get the judgement reversed. PDP added that it’s rather not surprising to many that the APC governors could allow themselves to be enlisted to haul insults at the PDP with a view to blur and distort the grave miscarriage of justice because many of them are products and beneficiaries of electoral manipulations.
“The APC governors’ part in this script appears very glaring. Of course, who else will the flies support except a person with open smelly sore? This is also why APC governors are encouraging their party to engage in underhand measures and supporting injustice instead of following democratic processes. In comparing the Imo State judgment to that of governorship elections in Zamfara and Rivers states, the APC governors forgot that Nigerians are abreast of the facts,” PDP said.
The main opposition party noted that governors of the ruling party deliberately obfuscate the fact that they lost Zamfara and Rivers states as a result of their internal wrangling over their failure to conduct a credible primary, which voided their votes and left the party with the second highest number of votes as the winner. This has no similarity with the case in Imo state where fictitious votes were manufactured by the Supreme Court and donated to the APC to lift it from the fourth position to become winner.