By Ogochukwu Isioma
Former Governor of Abia State and Senator-elect, Abia North Senatorial district, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu on Saturday cast his vote in the Governorship and House of Assembly elections, urging other eligible voters to also come out and exercise their civic obligations without fear, Igbere TV reports.
Igbere TV reports that Dr. Kalu, who arrived his polling unit at Onu-Ibina primary school, Igbere in Bende local government area, exercised his franchise at exactly 11:05am amidst cheers from supporters.
Speaking with journalists shortly after casting his vote, the ex-governor expressed satisfaction on the conduct of the election, and called on electorates to maintain peace throughout the exercise and after.
He also commended INEC and security agencies for their efforts, pointing out that democracy had come to stay, as much as people are allowed to make their choice of leaders without any fear or threat.
He, however, said that he hoped the exercise would continue peacefully until the end when collation of results would commence.
On what he hopes the outcome of the election to be, the Senator-elect said all his heart is with his party, the APC, just as he thanked the electorates for their mandate. “My expectation generally is for APC to continue to win. Anything less than that, Abia may be left behind in development,” he said.
“I am happy that everything is going on smoothly and the voters are conducting themselves peacefully and lawfully. This is how it is supposed to be as every citizen of the country should be able to freely vote for his or her choice, thus our democracy would thrive.
“We have a president that does not put his political party first, but cares more about the country. Buhari has always put the interest of the people first, we must emulate him. I was governor for eight years and I saw what the former president did with the electoral process.
“So far, so good and in this particular polling booth, all is well and the exercise would, by God’s grace, be hitch-free. Although, we have had some hiccups here and there; there was a reported case of card reader deficiency at a particular unit in Igbere. I learnt the card readers at the unit are not working. We have to improve this process. We’ve a lot of improvements to make. In my polling booth, we had only one case of finger print not matching with the record.
“But we hope that the entire elections will be conducted in an atmosphere of peace and harmony because at the end of the day, we all hope the decisions taken will help to take the state to the next level,” Dr. Kalu added.
Speaking on his electoral victory, Dr. Kalu said, “We won, the process was free and fair. Even INEC declared that the election in Abia North was the most peaceful in the whole of Abia State. We won with a big margin. We never tried to rig. We don’t bring in young boys who are supposed to be working to be snatching ballot boxes. Cases as such only happened in Arochukwu and some part of Abam. Those indulging in such things do not believe in democracy. So they continue to rig elections because that’s what they believe in. I have never told my people in Igbere to rig elections for me, for the past 20 years the processes has always been peaceful.”
Dr Kalu, therefore, renewed his call on the electorate to sustain the peaceful tempo, during and after the elections.
The Senator-elect spared some minutes to exchange banters with his Igbere neighbours before going back to his Camp Neya residence.
Credit: Igbere TV
