Dr. Alex Otti Rejects Outcome of Abia Elections

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) gover­norship candi­date in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, has rejected the result of the exercise an­nounced by the Indepen­dent National Electoral Commission (INEC0 in the early hours of yester­day, describing it as a rape of democracy.

Addressing journalists in his campaign office in Umuahia, the state capital, Otti called on the people of Abia, whom he said the re­sult had thrown into mourn­ing, to mourn no more, as­suring that steps would be taken to address their griev­ances.

He advised Abians not to resort to brigandage or thug­gery, saying two wrongs could not make a right.

“I am calling on my people to remain calm and steadfast. They should en­sure that they maintain the peace. The election has come, but it has not gone; the battle has just started,” Otti said.

He assured Abians that he would stop at nothing to en­sure that the mandate they had freely given to him, “not as an individual, but as agent of change,” would not be stolen.

Otti stated: “Evil can nev­er triumph over good. And if it seems that it is triumph­ing, it is only momentary because good must prevail.

“We are going to chal­lenge this charade at the tri­bunal, and we are very con­fident that with the wind of change in the entire coun­try, that change will not be obstructed in Abia State. We are standing on the path of justice because in this whole process, we have re­mained on the path of truth and refused to be lured into anything wrong and be­cause we are standing on the path of justice, we must get justice.

I know a lot of my supporters in Abia State are angry. If you go round the state today, it is like a dark cloud covering the whole state. There may be pock­ets of rejoicing, but those are pockets. Ninety percent of Abians are mourning. They are mourning, not be­cause somebody died, but because their will has been truncated, the mandate they had freely given, has been stolen.”