• As APGA presidential candidate blames Soludo, Oye for poor outing

Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State, yesterday, claimed over 23 political thugs have been imported into his state to disrupt the forthcoming governorship and state assembly elections, accusing opposition parties of the crime.

The governor stated this in Abakaliki, the state capital, while briefing journalists, saying these thugs are being hired by desperate politicians from opposition parties to scuttle the elections.

According to the governor, they are pushing youths loyal to them to protest over the outcome of the National Assembly election in the state. Umahi noted that prominent politicians in the state and their supporters had staged protest to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abakaliki, against declarations of their rivals, including the governor, as winners of the National Assembly election in the state, vowing to challenge the results.

Umahi said: “Let me appeal to political candidates to stop making inciting statement and importing people to start demonstration.

“We all know those who have done this, and the state will hold them responsible. They have been doing things like this and getting away with it; but let me warn that this time around, they will not.

“If you have problems with the elections, just like I do in a number of polling units in the South, North and Central zones of the state, what we have done is to compile those polling units and the infractions, make our reports to both the security agencies and INEC and not take laws into our hands or to start inciting people to go into demonstrations.”

MEANWHILE, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Saturday’s presidential election, Prof. Peter Umeadi, has blamed the Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, and National Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Oye, for the party’s poor outing in the exercise.

Umeadi, who is a former Chief Judge of the state, made this known in a post-election briefing, yesterday, hinting that Soludo and Oye withdrew their support for him, an act, he said, frustrated him in the race.

He also said that he did not get any money from either of them as backing from the party, attributing the little achievements he made in the race to personal efforts.

According to him, he was not requesting for money from any body, but insisted that, had both the governor and National Chairman supported him, it would have opened a floodgate of financial and moral support. But Soludo, who reacted through his Chief Press Secretary, Christian Aburime, dismissed Umeadi’s insinuation as an excuse for failure.