Cancel the Imo by-election within 48 hours or face mass action

On Thursday, the Orlu Political Action Committee, OPAC, demanded that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, cancel the Ngor Okpala bye-election outright within 48 hours.

Failure to do so, according to the socio-political group, would invite widespread outrage.

Barr. Nnamdi Maduka, the group’s Publicity Secretary, said President Muhammadu Buhari should summon Hope Uzodinma to order in a statement released in Owerri.

“The impression Imo people get is that all of Hope Uzodinma’s atrocities in Imo State go unpunished because of the cover he gets from Aso Rock,” OPAC said.

“The President owes it to the people of Imo to prevent Uzodinma from destroying the state’s democracy.” As a result, President Buhari must show that he never endorsed the heinous electoral fraud perpetrated in Ngor Okpala by Uzodinma and his henchmen.

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“We demand that the Inspector General of Police arrest and prosecute all Uzodinma’s agents, cronies, allies, and henchmen, as well as APC chieftains, who were involved in the heinous abductions, shootings, mayhem, and electoral fraud that marred the Ngor Okpala bye-election.”

“As a first step toward resolving the situation, we demand that INEC cancel the Ngor Okpala bye-election outright within 48 hours.” Failure to do so will provoke widespread outrage and massive action by the people of Imo State.”

“What was supposed to be a seamless, peaceful, credible, transparent, and hitch-free state constituency by-election was reduced to total warfare.” Ballot boxes were snatched from private residences of Uzodinma’s agents and hotel rooms by APC chieftains aided by truckloads of security operatives and militiamen, ad hoc INEC officials were massacred, and results were written at private residences of Uzodinma’s agents and hotel rooms as well. This is an indescribable level of anomie.

“On February 26, 2022, the Imo people awoke to yet another attack on our cherished democratic values when Hope Uzodinma unleashed his appointees and loyalists on Ngor Okpala with armed men to perpetrate mind-boggling electoral fraud,” he claimed.

The group expressed deep concern about the outbreak of violence and electoral fraud in Ngor Okpala.

OPAC stated that if the travesty was allowed to stand, the far-reaching consequences would be costly and harmful to Nigerian democracy as a whole.