With the countdown to the Imo State re-run election for the Okigwe Senatorial seat and eight local government areas in the state coming up this weekend, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has raised the alarm over alleged plot by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the polls.

Dr. Hilary Eke, state chairman of the APC, who briefed newsmen at the party secretariat Owerri Wednesday named Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate president, Professor Maurice Iwu, the former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and Chief Emeka Ihedioha, the immediate past Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, as the arrow heads behind the plot.

Eke said that the APC had it on good authority that while the INEC electoral officer expected to conduct the exercise is a cousin of Chief Ihedioha, all the electoral officers engaged for the polls are all from one community in Enugu State at the instance of Chief Ekweremadu.

Aside this, Eke who boasted that the APC would still maintain its electoral supremacy with overwhelming victory at the polls added that all the National Youth Service Corps members recruited to participate in the conduct of the re-run elections are equally indigenes of Enugu State expected to also act out the Ekweremadu script.

While calling on the INEC to strike while the iron is hot by checkmating the alleged excesses of the PDP to ensure a free, fair and transparent polls, the APC boss however assured that the party had no plans to boycott the polls.

He accused Ekweremadu of being jittery of Rt. Hon. Benjamin Uwajumogu, the APC senatorial candidate whom he reportedly sees as posing a threat to his position as the Deputy Senate President.

However, when contacted, a PDP stalwart who spoke on the grounds of anonymity said that the APC in the state was afraid of the election.

He said, “This is another ploy by the Imo APC to forestall the election. They vividly know that APC in the state has failed and that their candidates won’t make the election. Instead of them to accept defeat in advance, they are saying that we in the PDP are planning to rig the election.”

•Sourced from Independent.

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