"I am shocked, I have not met her before," Ikpeazu reacts to Professor Nnenna Oti's allegation over Abia State Governorship Election

Okezie Ikpeazu, the governor of Abia state, has accused Prof. Nnannaya-Oti, the returning officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), of being unjust to all parties that engaged in the election.

Ikpeazu said on Monday night, March 30, in an interview with Channels TV, that Nnannaya-Oti was "visibly happy" that she "favored" the Labour Party (LP) during the election.

Governor Ikpeazu also stated that prior to the election, he conducted background checks on the returning officer and complained to INEC that she would not be impartial in the voting process, but received assurances from the electoral umpire.

He said;;;

"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, collected at the wards, collected 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 trace 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 profiled her. 

"I am still shocked. What she has potrayed in the aftermath of her service or stewardship in Abia, indicates that 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 potrayed that she has something at the back of mind before she came."

Remember that Nnannaya-Oti, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, declared LP's Alex Otti the winner of the March 18 governorship poll in Abia on March 22. 

The declaration came after the final collation of governorship election results resumed in Umuahia, the state capital, more than 48 hours after INEC suspended the process in the South-East state.

On March 28, Nnannaya-Oti told her staff and pupils that she had been threatened and pressured to rig the election results, but she refused, read here