Delta: My next line of action – Ogboru
CHIEF Great Ogboru was the All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate for Delta State in last Saturday’s governorship election. Having lost for the sixth time to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he speaks on his next line of action describing the election as the worst in the 20 years history of the state.
Speaks on 2019 governorship polls in Delta
Akwa Ibom: How Emmanuel made it
The events concluding the governorship elections in Delta State took place on the 9th of March but not without incidents in several places. As a matter of fact, I and most Deltans believed that those elections, if and when properly conducted, APC should have won, and we believed that up until some few hours to the conclusion of the polls that we were winning, unfortunately, just after midday, thugs, uniformed persons working with the PDP in Delta State, started to rain terror on our agents and defenseless voters.
They went from polling unit to polling unit, either snatching ballot boxes or where they saw that the APC has made significant gains, they destroyed the ballot papers in those places under the watchful eyes of persons wearing uniform. We do not know if they are fakes or persons employed by the state, but suffice to say that these dastardly acts happened under the very eyes of persons wearing uniforms.
It happened in almost all the local government areas in Delta State without exemption. For instance, in Burutu, Bomadi and probably in Warri South West, voting started on Friday evening and we made several complaints to the authorities, but nobody heeded our calls.
On Saturday, it became apparent that indeed, some persons had actually started their usual practice of undermining the electorate in Delta State. But we thought it would be a restricted incident to certain riverine communities, but when it started in Sapele, Uvwie, Udu, Ughelli South, Okpe all in Delta Central, Ukwani, Ndokwa West and East, Ika North East and South, Oshimilli, Aniocha, all in Delta North, it became clear to us that the PDP never prepared for any elections.
They know that in an election, they will not be able to stand the will of the people of Delta State. So what they simply did was to recruit thugs from outside the state, and in some cases, we were told that some of those uniform persons were thugs of the PDP and it is with the aid of these thugs that they were able to undermine the will of the people of Delta State.
The people of Delta as you can see are in mourning because the will of the people have not been expressed in those polls. On Sunday, we made an inductive analysis of the situation and we called on INEC to take a decision to disrupt further announcement of those results because the results that were being announced, were far in excess of what we know could have happened in the state.
Over 500, 000 unaccredited voters voted in Delta
The INEC accreditation records from their database corroborate what we are saying, that the voters did not turn up as much as the votes that are being announced. INEC as at today, has less than 600, 000 accredited voters but the votes as being announced, exceed 1, 100, 000 which is to say over 500, 000 people who were not accredited, voted. That is a very serious issue, we have presented our case to the law enforcement agencies to investigate why this could happen, we have made our complaints to INEC, and of course, naturally, the party is taking a decision to challenge all of those actions in the proper arena.
Most of our agents were driven away from the collation centers with collation taking place outside the prescribed environment of such to take place.
This is the worst election in Delta
This is the worst election we have witnessed in Delta State in the past 20 years, the reign of terror, the number of dead, and of course the accreditation records from INEC testifies that the PDP was unduly influencing, interfering with the process of the election which is to say that the election was neither credible, neither was it free or fair. Just like the decision our party has taken, we therefore reject the results.
Use of federal might
Yes, we are members of the ruling party and that is correct, but there are other interests that may have played out in this exercise.
I do not think our party agents sold out during the election process, they were coaxed into leaving whatever arena they showed up to do their lawful duties. The institutional support we had is for all Nigerians and somebody hijacked that opportunity to his personal advantage and that is the question that has to be answered.
Message to Supporters
To our supporters, I want them to know that something is happening, it is not a hopeless situation at all, and we are going to take whatever step that is necessary to defend the franchise and mandate of the people of Delta State but whatever we have to do must be lawful.