GODWIN Ezeemo, candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in the November 18 governorship election in Anambra State, says the exercise was a grand conspiracy against him.

He said opposition political parties, together with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), ganged up against him and rendered him incapacitated during the election as evident in the late arrival of electoral materials and commencement of actual voting in his Umuchu hometown in Aguata Local Government Area.

The PPA candidate, who recounted his ordeal in the ballot, while speaking with a team of journalists on Tuesday at Umuchu, said with what transpired in the last election, “the implication is that the nation’s electoral system still has a long way to go and INEC is not anywhere close to getting it right”.

Ezeemo wondered why INEC should fall short of expectation in the conduct of the election despite the promises it made to the candidates and electorate of presenting a level-playing field to all and sundry.

Chiding INEC, the business mogul and philanthropist said even as a candidate in the election, electoral materials as well as all other paraphernalia necessary for the exercise did not arrive the entire Umuchu, Uga and some other parts of Aguata until about noon when most eligible voters had left in despair.

According to him, worse still, the agents of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a host of others were nowhere to be seen around the polling units; thereby sending signals to him of a grand design to disenfranchise him and his numerous supporters.

He added that the role of INEC in the whole saga left much to be desired.

Ezeemo stated that the irregularities in the conduct of the election would not deter him from contributing his quota in building a virile human infrastructure through his business empire.

He also suggested that reforms should be put in place to make the nation’s apex electoral body more responsive and proactive in the conduct of subsequent elections in the country.   –   Independent

– Nov. 30, 2017 @ 13:10 GMT