APGA chairman boasts of his party’s victory in Anambra guber election

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh, has said that the declaration of a supplementary poll in the Anambragovernorship election will extend the party's lead.

Umeh made the remark in Awka on Monday while reacting to INEC's pronouncement of Saturday's poll inconclusive.

'Honestly speaking, we accept the supplementary poll, the reason being that if they had gone ahead to declare our candidate the winner of the election, so much fury would have followed,'' Umeh said.

The chairman said the party's victory was only delayed and could not be denied, saying that APGA's lead could not be surpassed by any other candidate.

Analysing the situation further, Umeh said the third runner-up, the candidate of the Labour Party, was clearly out of the race as the party was 137,000 votes clear of him.

'For the first runner up, the PDP candidate, we are leading him with 79,754 votes and all of us are chasing the 113,113 votes.

'The only thing the supplementary votes will do for us is to extend our lead in terms of the number of votes with which we will win this election,' he said.

Umeh said the party had satisfied the provisions of the constitution by scoring the highest number of votes in 16 local governments.

'We achieved outright victory in 16 local governments and according to the constitution on the issue of spread, we have scored 25 per cent in 18 local governments.

'Neither the first runner-up nor the second runner-up can meet this requirement of spread even if you give them the whole 113,113 votes,' he said.

In its reaction, the People's Democratic Party (PDP) maintained its position which sought the outright cancellation of the election and called for a fresh poll.

The party's state agent, Mr Kingsley Onyeka, told newsmen that security agents barred the party agents from participating in the poll in many areas.

'Our agents were barred by the security agents from getting access into their polling units,'' he said and wondered what informed the decision.

Onyeka said names of many prospective voters were removed from the register, including the name of the party's candidate, Mr Tony Nwoye.

He appealed to INEC to consider its petition which was already before it to re-conduct the poll for the purpose of posterity.

'This election is being conducted in just Anambra and all the officials of the commissioner are here. If we don't get it right, when are we going to get it right?

'We are seeking for the outright cancellation and let the election be re-conducted so that the people of the state will be given the opportunity to vote their choice,' Onyeka said.

The supplementary poll will be conducted in parts of Ayamelum, Anambra East, Anambra West, Anaocha, Aguata, Awka South and Ekwusigo local government areas at a later date.

The election in parts of Idemili North, Idemili South, Awka North, Nnewi South, Onitsha North, Onitsha South, Orumba North and Oyi local council areas was also cancelled due to various electoral offences.

Meanwhile, results collated so far showed that Chief Willie Obiano of APGA garnered 174,710 votes, Nwoye got 94,956 votes while Sen. Chris Ngige scored 92,300 votes to place third.