Wabara-Imo election tussle
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Jun 24, 2003, 19:28

Elder Dan Imo of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) reiterated, at a news conference over the weekend in Abuja, that after wide consultations with various stakeholders he decided to withdraw all litigations against the re-election of Adolphus Wabara of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Senate.

According to Imo, he took the decision in the wider interest of his immediate political constituency (Ukwa Ngwa), the Southeast geopolitical zone and the entire people of Nigeria.

Up until 4 June, a day before his selection as Senate President, Wabara was enmeshed in a bitter election dispute with Imo, who had hitherto claimed that he was elected to represent Abia South in the Senate.

Imo maintained that results issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abia State proved that he, and not Wabara, had been duly elected.

The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Abia, Chief Elkanah Adeoye Akintade, stated, in regard to the case, that a game was being played by key political figures for self-centred reasons. According to him, the INEC headquarters in Abuja had no business determining who won or lost the Abia South senatorial district election without formal communication to that effect from him. He went on to explain that he, as the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Abia state, had neither sent any result to the INEC website or to its headquarters.

Akintade further alleged that an ANPP agent, who successfully impersonated an INEC collation officer, initiated the embarrassment that led to the emergence of two winners. According to him, Wabara was leading in five of the six local government areas of the district when the results were announced, pending results from Obingwa Local Government Area.

The Abia Resident Electoral Commissioner said that the Local Government Returning Officer was misled into accepting an inflated result from the alleged agent of the ANPP, which declared Imo as winner of the election. After the deception was unravelled, Akintade explained, all efforts to retrieve the false result from Imo failed.

The Returning officer subsequently cancelled the result after realising that the impersonator belonged to Imo’s Party, the ANPP. He then wrote a letter to inform Akintade, as Abia Resident Electoral Commissioner, about the incident, and Akintade reportedly telephoned the INEC headquarters to inform them of the discrepancies.

Based on the above irregularities, the Returning Officer went on to declare Wabara the winner of the election. Meanwhile, Akintade cancelled the results on the approval of the INEC headquarters, and fresh senatorial elections for Abia South were set for 16 April. But because the fresh elections were too close to the gubernatorial and presidential elections slated for 19 April, they were postponed. Before they could be rescheduled, however, the INEC headquarters directed that new elections would not hold because a winner had already been declared for Abia South.

The INEC duly informed Akintade that since the Returning Officer had already declared Imo the winner, he had no right to cancel the results. However, Akintade still refused to give Imo a certificate that recognised him as winner of the election. Both Imo and Wabara subsequently took their cases to court, but later on withdrew them.

Imo first took his petition to the Federal High Court at Umuahia before presenting it before the Abia State Election Tribunal. However, the Tribunal struck out the case.

Related Article:

Imo drops case against Wabara


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