Ikpeazu Denies Begging Opponent To Withdraw Petition

National officers of Prison Officers’ Wives Association (PROWA) R-L: Public Relations Officer, Mrs Henrietta Toby, Secretary, Mrs Afujue Ogechukwu and President, Mrs Lizzie Ekpendu, during a Fund Raising for PROWA Nursery and Primary School in Enugu, yesterday.

Abia State Governor,
Okezie Ikpeazu, said he did not appeal to Alex Oti, his opponent in the last general election in the state, to withdraw the petition at the elections tribunal.
Oti was the candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the gubernatorial poll in the state, and had challenged the victory of Ikpeazu at the Elections Petitions Tribunal in the state.
He had in a media report claimed that Ikpeazu sent different emissaries to him for a truce on the matter before the tribunal.
But Ikpeazu said that contrary to the claim, he did not send emissaries to beg him to withdraw petition he filed at the tribunal, stressing that the APGA candidate lied in the claim.
Speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Ugochukwu Emezue, he said that Oti’s claim that he Ikpeazu sent emissaries to beg him was meant to create a false impression that he (Ikpeazu ) was in a tight corner.
He challenged the APGA candidate to make public the identities of the emissaries he claimed to have approached him on his behalf.
He urged people of the state not to take Oti serious if he failed to make public the identities of the emissaries purportedly sent to beg him.
According to the governor, tribunals don’t work with sentiment; the tribunal should be allowed to do its work.
He called on the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to call an Umuahia-based radio station to order, saying that the station had been broadcasting prejudicial materials on the tribunal’s proceedings.
Meanwhile, the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Umuahia has struck out the petition filed by Chief Nyerere Ayim, the governorship candidate of APC, challenging the election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu.
Delivering judgment in the petition the Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Usman Bwala, struck out the petition “for negligence and lack of diligence’’ in the prosecution by the petitioners.
Bwala also said that the petitioners failed to comply with the relevant sections of the Electoral Act in prosecuting their matter.
Messrs Adegboyega Awolomo, Henry Balogu and Livy Uzoukwu, who were counsels to Ikpeazu, PDP, and INEC, respectively had urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition because of the absence of the petitioners at the tribunal.
In their separate submissions, they said that neither the petitioners nor their counsels were in the tribunal and could not write to explain reasons for their absence. They urged the tribunal to strike the matter out, saying that the petitioners had lost interest in the matter. The chairman of the tribunal later struck out the petition, saying that the petitioners failed to comply with relevant sections of the law to prosecute their petition.