Oliver Twist! APC Pushes For Outright Cancellation of Akwa Ibom Gubernatorial Election

Posted by George on Thu 22nd Oct, 2015 - tori.ng

The All Progressive Congress in Akwa Ibom state have voiced their dissatisfaction in the nullification of election in 18 LGAs in the state and is instead advocating for an outright cancellation of the entire gubernatorial election which held in the state.

Gov. Udom Gabriel Emmanuel and Umana Okon Umana, his APC challenger

The All Progressives Congress on Wednesday said it would appeal against the judgment of the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Akwa Ibom which nullified the gubernatorial election results in 18 Local Government Areas (Click here to read the initial report).

The Chairman of the party in the state, Amadu Atai, announced this to journalists in Uyo. Mr. Atai said the party was expecting outright cancellation of the governorship election since it nullified the elections in 18 out of the 31 local government areas.

“The tribunal has cancelled the governorship elections in 18 local government areas and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission to conduct elections in the affected areas.

“But we are going to file an appeal because we expected cancellation in more local government areas where discrepancies were pervasive”, Atai said.

The Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, Paul Ekpo, however, said that the judgement was confusing. Mr. Ekpo said the only good thing about the judgment was that the State Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, remained in office.

The Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal for Akwa Ibom had earlier nullified the April 11 election in 18 out of the 31 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the State over voters’ disenfranchisement.

The three-member tribunal presided over by Justice Sadiq Umar ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct re-run election in the affected 18 LGAs.