You’ve no right to withhold my certificate, Okorocha tells INEC

Embattled governor of Imo state, Rochas Okorocha, says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has no right to withhold his certificate of return.

Recall that INEC had removed Okorocha’s name from the list of senators-elect who will be presented with certificates on Thursday, saying the governor was declared winner “under duress”.

But addressing his supporters on Wednesday, Okorocha said anyone who decides to go against him would lose.

“I wonder why INEC will withhold my certificate for a frivolous reason, without hearing from me. I am not a violent person and those who know me know that,” he said.

He also rejected the declaration of Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP winner of the election, with Uche Nwosu, candidate of the Action Alliance (AA), trailing him.

Okorocha insisted that “going by the actual calculation, the person that won this election is Nwosu, his son-in-law.

“Uche Nwosu won the election landslide, if you remove the manipulation results from Mbaise, Uche Nwosu won with over 50,000 votes, if you cannot declare him a winner because you have someone already, then they should go for a rerun because you cannot change the Constitution if the Federal Republic of Nigeria because you want to favour a candidate,” he said.

“The REC had acted illegally by ignoring the provision of the Constitution that makes it mandatory for a candidate to have 25 percent in 2/3 of the Local Governments in the State by announcing the PDP candidate, Emeka Ihedioha who only met the requirement in 9 Local Governments instead of 18 LGAs which is 2/3 of 27 LGAs winner.”

He further sought answers to why the REC should accept the “outrageous figures” from the three local government’s areas of Aboh Mbaise, Ahiazu Mbaise and Ezinihitte, where the PDP candidate got 64,219 votes from Aboh Mbaise alone.

Okorocha noted that the outcome from the three LGAs constituted 50 percent of the total votes got by the PDP candidate in the state with 27 LGAs.

“In the course of this manipulation, we all observed that the REC decided not to use the collation officers from Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), which he disbanded for reasons he gave that they have met with politicians,” the governor said.

“Again, he brought some people whom he introduced from the University of Agriculture Umudike.

“They arrived just a night before the election date and we thought we have gotten the collation officers. Again, those ones were disbanded on the same reason that they have met with politicians, I wonder how this is possible having arrived the state after midnight on the election eve.

“Now the REC went to his own University in Awka to bring in collation officers. We believed him not knowing that he brought people he has been training for a hatched job for some weeks now in Anambra State to come and carry out this injustice in Imo State.