Money bags: EFCC must monitor Anambra guber election – UPP

By Ikechukwu Okafoardi

Consequent to the alleged many heavy ‘Ghana Must Go’ cash exchanging hands in Anambra ahead of the governorship election scheduled for November 18, the United Peoples Party (UPP) has said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) must be involved in the election.
The national chairman of the party, Chekwas Okorie, said this in Abuja yesterday while presenting the party’s certificate of return to the immediate past Corps Marshal of Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Osita Chidoka, who is the UPP’s governorship candidate for the Anambra state election.
Presenting the certificates to the candidate, Okorie recalled that the candidate exhibited unusual acceptability and solid grassroots mandate, by polling over ninety percent of the vote cast by about one thousand four hundred delegates who elected the governorship candidates during the party’s primaries.
“The INEC promised that the election will be conducted with the card reader that can transmit the result from the field to the central data base immediately electronically, and that is what they promised all of us, we want them to do just that”, he said.
Speaking further, he called for EFCC’s involvement in monitoring the election disclosing that in the 2015 governorship election in which UPP participated, huge ‘Ghana Must Go” bags of cash were drafted to polling units where N5000 was paid by a political party to any voter that was willing to vote for it.
He said when the police was accosted over the development, they said they were sent to maintain peace and not to monitor money shearing, an evidence that they were already compromised. He said UPP, which has the tiger’s head as its logo, will, like a tiger, liberate Anambra from the clutches of political merchants.
Responding, the governorship candidate, Osita Chidoka, said UPP has the most credible platform for the Anambra election, adding that Anambra is about to witness a new beginning, which he said is the journey of a tiger.
“No more will the state fund be used for the interest of the party member and no more for those parties with bankrupt ideas. Today UPP has come to give hope to Anambra people and end their cries”, he said.
He said the reason for the formation of APGA was to champollion the cause of the Igbos, regretting that the vision was lost because the party wax high jacked, hence the UPP has come to fill the vacuum. He said because APGA has lost focus, it has found it difficult to take a stand on the Biafra agitation, restructuring, among others.
He accused the APGA of being a party that is ready to work with any party in power at the center, irrespective of whether the interest of the Igbos is protected or not. He said the huge sum of money spent on security by the present government in Anambra is not justified. He argued that with growing political enlightenment among the Igbos, money will play less significant role in the election.

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