Police Debunk Arrest Of Suspect With Prepared Election Result

The police command in Abia State has said that it was not aware of the alleged arrest of a man in unlawful possession of election materials, including written result sheets for the botched presidential and National Assembly elections.

The spokesman for the command, SP Geoffrey Ogbonna, said on Saturday that he merely read the report of the arrest in a social media platform.
He said, “From our end here, we do not have such report. I only read the report in the social media.”
He was reacting to the allegation by Mr Benedict Godson, the Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State that a security agency arrested and “are in custody” of a man in possession of more than 500 written results.
Godson said that the suspect was being held by security operatives.

He said that the party was not comfortable with the activities of the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Dr. Joseph Iloh.
He accused Illoh of bias and demanded, “he should strive to be neutral and not one-sided.”
He alleged that there was a conspiracy between the REC and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state to stop APC impending electoral victory.

“We pray that God will touch the REC’s heart to play the game according to the rule.
“We also appeal to REC and PDP to stop the conspiracy and allow a free, fair and credible election,” Godson said.
He said that APC would not accept any election results that were not signed by the party’s agents for the polls.

He appealed to the police and other security agencies in the state to do the needful to ensure that the elections were peaceful and credible.
Reacting, the Publicity Secretary of PDP, Chief Don Ubani, dismissed the allegation, saying that the party had no plans to rig any elections in the state.
Ubani said that he had earlier issued a statement accusing the REC of withholding the result sheets.
He therefore wondered why APC would turn around to allege that the party and PDP were in a conspiracy to rig the polls.

Attempts made to get the reaction of the REC were unsuccessful as he was said to be “very busy” to attend to newsmen on the issue.
He also could not pick phone calls put across to him.