Ngige Alleges Plot to Rig November Election

The gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the November 16 Anambra State election, Senator Chris Ngige, has alleged that the recent 500 buses being distributed by the state Governor, Peter Obi and the recruitment exercise embarked upon by his administration were part of the design to rig election. Ngige, who has also unveiled his blueprint for the state, said there was a conscious move by the incumbent government to rig the forthcoming election, “hence we are using this medium to alert the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) and the good citizens of Anambra State in general.” Media Consultant to Ngige, Clementina Olomu, who made this known in a statement, said the allegation was based on an intelligence report available to the Ngige campaign office. She contended that the buses were procured for the purpose of the election and would be located at strategic positions all over the state to be used to convey already marked ballot papers in favour of the ruling party, which would be handed over to INEC as the votes collated from the different wards and the polling booths. "Most especially in Anambra Central Senatorial district, where Ngige is currently the senator, it is to give the Anambra people the false impression that Ngige lost the election even in his on senatorial district," she added. Olomu, however, said from all ramifications, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) administration has failed the people and had only resorted to "projects that have been regarded as Greek gift by the people of Anambra State. "Ironically, the people of Anambra are aware that he has failed them completely and are not carried away by his Greek gift in the name of launching all sorts of projects. All these, they consider medicine after death," Olomu stated. On his blueprint for the development of the state, Ngige, while addressing the Anambra business community in Lagos, said his return to the Government House would enable him complete the work he began in 2003. His manifesto, he claimed, contained the remainder of the programmes he began in the state in his 33-month governorship, pointing out that his eight- year blue print to develop the state was jettisoned abruptly with most of the strategic projects left undone. Pledging to utilise the abundant human and financial resources of the state to make it livable place for everyone, Ngige declared: “When they ask what I forgot at the Government House, I tell them I forgot my work plan for Anambra State. I will dust the blueprint when I get back there to rebuild Anambra State. Security has to be restored in Anambra State as well as unfettered freedom of movement, equity and fairness,” he said. Meanwhile, Olomu has decried what she described as unwarranted attacks aimed at running down the APC candidate in the run up to the election. In a statement in Awka, she said such attacks like the insinuation that Ngige had been deaf and dumb in his last two years in the Senate or that the revered traditional ruler of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe Nnaemeka, placed a curse on him smacked off hatred by opponents, who saw Ngige as the most credible candidate in the election. “They are running him down because he is the most credible candidate in the election. Take the APGA candidate, Willie Obiano, for instance, he has not excelled in the banking industry not to talk of handing a state. What has he done in a unit of Fidelity Bank, when he was there to uplift it let alone the whole banking industry,” she asked. She said the reason they are attacking Ngige transcends the election alone. “I discovered that it was not just for the sake of the elections but because of the things he achieved in the 34 months when he served as governor, building durable roads, upgrading hospitals and schools as well as people-oriented bills he had sponsored as a senator,” she said.