Ben Ezechime, Enugu
Hon. Dennis Agbo, who represented Igbo-Eze North/Udenu Federal Constituency in the 10th National Assembly, has expressed confidence of victory at the polls at the rerun election slated for Saturday February 3.
It would be recalled that the Court of Appeal sitting in Lagos State nullified Agbo’s election in an appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate, Dr. Oby Ajih, and mandated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to conduct a fresh election for all political parties involved within 90 days in the Constituency.
Addressing journalists in his country home in Uda, Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State, Agbo, who is the Labour Party candidate said that the margin with which he won other contestants in the last election was still intact, adding that he was very optimistic he would emerge victorious once again.
He said, “The Appeal Court ordered a re-run in 176 polling units out of 532 polling units, which is just less than 30 per cent of the polling units in the constituency.
“What happened was that one of the parties that contested the election, the APC, complained that in those polling units, that the results of their party were not recorded in the result sheet, not the ballot papers.
“The fact is that those were the places where they got no votes. INEC just left it blank.
“They forgot to write zero for APC. They then complained that their votes were not recorded.
“The vote they got was zero, but it needed to be recorded. We are going back to do the re-run in those places.
“There are about 357 polling units that are intact, and the votes there are intact. My votes there are about 22,600. The PDP candidate’s votes are 10,000. APC has just 961 votes. It means I am ahead of the PDP candidate by about 12,500 votes.
“The margin with which I went to the House of Representatives was over the double of the votes of my closest rival.
“I got 28,870, the next person got 14,300; so, I defeated the person by up to 14,500 votes.
“This time around, I am only going to add to that margin as I am already passing them by 12,500. Let them also know and believe they have been given a fair hearing.”
On allegations of possible rigging by the PDP, Agbo said, “The truth is that many terrible things have happened in the Nigerian elections.
“People are believing and thinking the worst, but we are not leaving such speculations without being attended to, our eyes are open to make sure nobody springs a surprise.
“This is because this election is just a mere formality to give some people a sense of belonging, and yet they are parading all manner of stories here and there to intimidate the people.
“It is very laughable. This is because they couldn’t do it in the main election with 532 polling units.
“It appears PDP has not learnt a lesson that people don’t like them anymore, but we shall teach them once more. Their time for governance is over, and they will never, under my watch, come back to government again.”
He reaffirmed his commitment to delivering the dividends of democracy to the people.
“I remember the kind of mandate they have given to me. I don’t lose sight of it even for a second. It’s a sacred mandate that swam against the tide and it was an overwhelming victory.
“I will work for them day and night. This mandate is worth losing sleep for. They know what I have already started and the results are showing,” Agbo said.
