Chief Chekwas Okorie, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate for president in the 2023 elections, has expressed his opinion on why Peter Obi, a member of the Labour Party (LP), lost in the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal but prevailed in his gubernatorial court case in Anambra.
Okorie claims that Obi’s 2003 victory in the Anambra State court was made possible by APGA agents stationed in each of the state’s voting units.
Obi ran for governor of Anambra in 2003 under the APGA, but Chris Ngige of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated him, according to Anaedoonline.ng.
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However, Obi pursued the matter in court and was ultimately deemed the victor.
Okorie informed The Sun that there is no law requiring the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transfer any results electronically in response to the recent PEPT ruling.
Having “agents accredited by INEC to monitor the election at every polling unit, collect the form EC8A, diligently follow the results to the collation centre and report to their principals,” he urged other political parties, is a good idea.
Okorie said that he had previously acknowledged that the petitioners lacked sufficient proof before the PEPT rendered its decision.
He clarified that because APGA had result papers, Obi could guarantee his victory in 2003.
How INEC Gave My Mandate To Umahi – Ex-Reps Member, Okorie Claims
According to him, “One lesson political parties and their candidates must have learned from the recent judgment of the Appeal Court on Peter Obi and Atiku petitions is that INEC is not compelled by law to transmit results even when they have promised to do so. Failure to do so will not make them liable for any breach of the law. So, until the Electoral Law is amended, which is one of the challenges of the National Assembly, INEC is not under obligation to transmit results.
“What I will advise political parties to do is to ensure that they have agents accredited by INEC to monitor the election at every polling unit, collect the form EC8A and diligently follow the results to the collation centre and report to their principals.
“In 2003, when I was the National Chairman and founder of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), we made sure we had our agents in all the polling units in Anambra State. The result showed that Peter Obi won that election, but PDP went somewhere to write a different result which was declared as authentic by the INEC and Chris Ngige as the winner. However, it was easy to detect that APGA result sheets were authentic because we had our agents in all the polling units.
How INEC Gave My Mandate To Umahi – Ex-Reps Member, Okorie Claims
“That was how Peter was able to win the case at the tribunal. In spite of the fact that the people who contested the election with us had far larger war chess in terms of money than our candidate, the tribunal had no choice but to give judgment to the rightful winner. I had said it earlier before the Appeal Court gave the recent judgment that other parties didn’t have enough evidence to prove that they won the election. One of them didn’t even have agents in certain locations. It is the form EC8A that is superior to results on the IreV portal. So, they lost from the beginning.”
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