Why Ihedioha Should be Preferred to Okorocha During Saturday Polls

For a second time in two weeks, some sections of  Imolites will again file out this Saturday to embark on their civic obligation of  electing   the person who will lead Imo in the next four years. Coming under supplementary election, the umpires, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has once more offered Imolites a great opportunity to plausibly amend the mistakes and rationally fill in gaps that arose from April 11 governorship  polls in the state.

This Saturday’s supplementary election is a consequent of many defects, malpractices, frauds and violence that trailed the last election. INEC has resorted to it as a veritable measure to correct the many established anomalies. The enormity and expansive nature of the electoral frauds make the clarion   call by many non-governmental organizations and civil society groups that INEC should expand the scope of the supplementary election to cover the entire state a compelling democratic requisite

The Imo supplementary election is significant in many respects. First, it offers the voters who will be going to the polls on Saturday a rare chance to draw from their experiences in the last election so as to vote more wisely.   Put more crisply and specifically, voters now have better assessment of the two key candidates- Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha of PDP and APC’s Owelle Rochas Okorocha- based on their conducts during the last election and can appropriately lean on it to embark on a remarkable choice on Saturday.

Evidently, in spite of running Imo for four years, Governor Okorocha’s conducts before, during and after the April 11 governorship polls in Imo betrayed him as a desperate candidate who perceives his re-election bid as a do or die affair. This is contrary to Ihedioha’s calm, matured, peaceful and forward-looking approach to the polls and thus making him the best candidate for the job.

Okorocha’s overt desperado disposition is ominous. It  betrays him as one who has a lot to cover up in government and as such  needed to apply all known and unknown unconventional means to retain power  to the detriment of Imolites and to seal up his sins. Those who are voting on Saturday should do so with a singular purpose; to vote out a desperate administration that has four years misruled Imo and set it on the path of educational and economic comatose; a government that is pushing to return on large scale electoral fraud thereby attempting to circumvent the   Imolites collective disapproval of him

The electoral frauds orchestrated and supervised by the APC’s governorship candidate during the last election to diminish people’s mandate and aspiration were many, varied and complex. For instance, result sheets of other APC states of Katsina and Kano were smuggled into Imo at the eve of the election and used to falsify figures especially in Orlu zone of the state in favour of the APC candidate.

Besides, re-writing of already collated results was the order in some of the collation centres late Saturday night. Many INEC ad hoc staff were financially induced even in Government House Owerri Friday night by the APC candidate and his cronies to manipulate the electoral process. Armed banditry  was perfected in areas PDP was leading to browbeat voters and INEC officials  for the ballot boxes to be snatched and figures altered. This development was corroborated by the returning officer of Oru East who narrated how she was rough handled by APC organized thugs and forced under gun point to manipulate the collated results

A couple of days after the election, the APC candidate against known decorum and  INEC guideline went on air to announce his own brand of result by declaring himself winner of the election INEC declared inconclusive.          He has been consistent in attacking the PDP candidate and INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Dr Gabriel Ada. He tagged him a card-carrying member of PDP, alleging that he was foisted on the state by the PDP candidate and accordingly called for his sack.

This obvious sanctimonious statement is  conversely  pretentious and deceitful .This  is so because verifiable records show that he benefitted immensely from the jaded Imo guber polls marred with lapses. The big puzzle is how would someone who has been hugely favoured in a jaundiced process which he superintended turn around  in a regrettable move to play saint.

Time has now come for Imolites to do away with someone who wants to rule them by  hook or crook and on the altar of desperation and fraud. Little wonder he refused to sign the peace accord duly consented to by other governorship candidates including the PDP candidate. In a democratic process people’s right to choose the person to lead them is supreme and unassailable,  Okorocha’s jerk boot style of self-imposition should be rejected this Saturday by Imo voters going to the polls by voting massively to foreclose his frenzy  for a re-election

It is therefore a democratic imperative for  voters to cast their  votes astutely by voting for change represented by Ihedioha, a popular choice. Desirable though, Imolites must accordingly and essentially vote for change of: civilian dictatorship, lawlessness, death knoll of local councils, education and economic crisis, rising level of unemployment, embezzlement of public funds, devastating state debt profile and contracts abandonment and so on represented by the present state government.

Ihedioha has shown during and after the last election through his statesman-led comportment imbued in rule of law that he is the best candidate for the job of Imo Governor. His fascinating pedigree and profoundly remarkable record of public service electrify this reality. His manifesto clinically designed to correct the many anomalies of Okorocha’s administration and set the state on the roadmap for economic reform, education rebound, industrialization, functional empowerment programmes and employment generation is pertinent and results-oriented. These  veritable realities thus make Ihedioha the only incontrovertible choice for Imolites on Saturday.