The now celebrated returning officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) for the March 18, gubernatorial election, Prof. Nnenna Oti, has disclosed how she was threaten and induced with mouth watering financial incentives to manipulate the Abia state election result that declared the Labour party, LP, candidate, Alex Otti, as the Governor-elect.
Oti, who doubled as the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri(FUTO), made the disclosure on Tuesday, while addressing the management, staff and students of the University who troop out in their large number to give her a heroic welcome.
It would be recalled that before Alex Oti was declared the governor-elect at the conclusion of the election, collation of the results for Obingwa Local Government Area (LGA) were briefly suspended by INEC, arousing tension among the electorate and stakeholders in the state.
According to her, she was promised huge monetary inducement to change the election result before announcement but declined the offer as she remained resolute in the face of heavy intimidation and threats.
Her words, “As an electoral officer, I have never in my life participated in any election, but duty came calling, I made my enquiries from Abuja,” Oti said.
“If I perish, I perish, they came with their threats, they came with their money, they came with their intimidation.”
She continued, “I didn’t start today; I stand here before God, Jesus Christ. I have never defrauded anyone, all I did was to declare the riot act as follows: Under me, votes must count. Under me, the people’s mandate will be upheld because I, Professor Nnnena Oti, can never do evil,”
The declared results by the returning officer saw Alex Otti pulling 175,467 to Okey Ahiwe and Enyinnaya Nwafor scoring 88,529 and 28,972 respectively.
