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….commends Prof Oti’s courage, integrity in Abia Guber
From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety) has described the outcome of just concluded general elections as the beginning of ballot revolution to liberate South-East geopolitical zone.
The group said that the outcome of the elections indicated the commencement of the journey to liberate the South-East from decades-long political and leadership bondages.
The Chairman of Intersociety Mr. Emeka Umeagbalasi in a statement said that what happened in the five South-East States during the polls has positively become the first of its kind in decades.
“Despite ‘industrial scale’ voter suppression and collation center massive rigging of living votes and their replacement with fixed dead votes by INEC and desperate political actors, the resilience of the People of the Region has brought about “Time-UP” for the rigging bandits that fiercely survived and “Red-Cards” for others that did not survive.
“It is on record that the South-East Region had produced only three public leadership conscious and compliant democratically elected Govs between 1979 and 2014; namely: Dr Sam Mbakwe of Old Imo State (1979-1983), Chief Ifeanyichukwu Jim Nwobodo of Old Anambra State (1979-1983) and Chief Gregory Peter Obi of New Anambra State (2006-2014).
“Apart from these three and their historical output legitimacies (achievements), nothing reasonable has ever come the way of the Region developmentally. It must be reminded that the most striking quality of ascendance to elective public office by Mbakwe, Nwobodo and Obi and towering achievements in their names was that they were grounded in ‘input’ and ‘output’ legitimacies (ascending to elective public office through popular and credible electoral process and towering achievements in office through judicious and transparent use of public funds for public good).
“Therefore observed was the fact that the 2023 polls in the South-East are strongly grounded in ballot revolution and political re-awaking including ‘take back your destinies’. For the first time in decades, transactional politics and politics of anointment or selection were strongly challenged and resisted in Enugu, Anambra and Abia; which also for the first in decades, will be having mixed and balanced State Assembly legislative compositions.
In Ebonyi and Imo State with installed ‘mistakes’ as Governors, the citizens of the two States came out boldly en masse and spoke through the ballot; only for their sacred electoral wishes to be brutally subverted and suppressed through transactional politics using amassed billions from state coffers and widespread deployment of killer-squads and pocketing of security and INEC chiefs.
“The two States have also earned notoriety as South-East most politically unstable and deadliest States since 2021; fueled by the Supreme Court installation of the Governor of Imo State in Jan 2020 and defection of the Governor of Ebonyi State to APC on 19th Nov 2020. Today, Imo and Ebonyi have been politically polarized by intolerance and divisions.
“Intersociety not only heartily congratulates and celebrates the courageous and conscientious Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Prof Mrs. Nnenna Oti who stood her ground and insisted that the sacred electoral wishes of the People of Abia State in the just held Governorship Election in the State must not be toyed with.
“We have also put her name down as a matter of conscientious recommendation as the next Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission” Umeagbalasi stated.
