The Abia State governor, Okezie Ikpeazu has come out to accuse the Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission at the just-concluded March 18 governorship election in the state, Prof. Nnenna Oti of being unfair to parties that participated in the poll.

He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, before the poll, he had carried out some background checks on the returning officer and complained to INEC that she wouldn’t be fair in the electoral process because of the coincidence in her name and a contender in the poll.

He, however, added that INEC never got back to him about his complaint, and he is still very surprised.

His words, “This is very unfortunate. I have not met that professor and I am shocked because in the first place, if she is a professor, she doesn’t even have the capacity to manipulate results because these are results that emanated from the units, collated at the wards, collated at the local governments and brought for her to just add them up and announce. I’ve not met her before; I’ve not spoken to her. If I have met her, if I have spoken to her, let her come to the public and declare so. So, I am shocked that she is making a big noise out of nothing.”

“At some point when I saw the coincidence in name and traced a little bit of her background, I complained to INEC that this lady was not going to be fair but they assured me that they had profiled her. I am still shocked. What she has portrayed in the aftermath of her service or stewardship in Abia indicates the fact that she is visibly happy with what she did. Her level of bias in that regard could be placed in favour of a party. She has portrayed that she had something at the back of her mind before she came.”