The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Owerri,Prof. Nnenna Oti, has narrated her experience while discharging her responsibility as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer in the Abia State gubernatorial elections and State Assembly elections.
Oti revealed that she was offered financial incentives to manipulate the election results.
She spoke while being welcomed by the management, staff and students of the university after concluding the national assignment.
The Vice Chancellor said, “As an electoral officer, I have never in my life participated in any election, but duty came calling, I made my enquiries from Abuja.
“If I perish, I perish, they came with their threats, they came with their money, they came with their intimidation.”
She said she maintained her ideals and principles not to short-change anyone and ensured that the will of the people of Abia prevailed and that their votes counted during the election.
“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,” she said.
The collation of results was suspended in a local government in Abia state thereby making the people of Abia suspicious of INEC.
But upon resumption of the collation, the result was announced by the fearless returning officer.
The declared results by the returning officer saw the labour party (LP) candidate, Alex Otti totalling 175,467 to Okey Ahiwe and Enyinnaya Nwafor scoring 88,529 and 28,972 respectively
