Uzodimma fingers Professor over attacks on INEC offices

Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma, has said that the former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Lai Olurode, should be quizzed over recent incessant attacks on INEC offices.

“The governor believes that Prof. Olurode’s inciting comments over the attacks on INEC offices were mere smokescreen to cover up what the unsuspecting members of the public may not know, but which the former INEC official knows about the attacks for which he should be properly investigated,” his Chief Press Secretary, Oguwuike Nwachuku, said in a statement isued yesterday, Monday, May 24, 2021, in Owerri, the state capital.

Prof Olurode had in a statement credited to  him in yesterday’s edition of The Guardian said that “the court ruling that produced Governor Hope Uzodimma and agitation by the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) were likely reasons for the recent attacks on the Commission’s offices.”

“The perception that elections do not always reflect the will of the people in the country was another factor that should not be ignored . . . Most of the attacks in Imo State were caused by the ill-fated election. It was more of judicial victory, because that election in which someone, who lacked the formidable electoral strength became governor,” Prof Olurode added.

Governor Uzodimma believes that Prof Olurode was either directly involved in the attacks on INEC offices as recently witnessed in parts of the country or deeply connected to those perpetrating the ill.”

The governor said the only way Prof. Olurode can absolve himself from the attacks on INEC offices is if he is properly interrogated by security agents.

Senator Uzodimma noted that Prof. Olurode has shown that the years he spent in INEC were a complete waste if he could not come to terms with the role of the judiciary in the electoral process.

He wondered how possible it is for any politician in the country to win or lose an election through the Nigerian courts without INEC’s involvement.

Governor Uzodimma reasoned that “Prof. Olurode and his likes have done great damage to the Nigerian society by playing the ostrich and feigning ignorance of how the judiciary contributes in deepening our democracy, particularly in an environment where electoral fraud and criminality are elevated to a faith.”

He, therefore, urged members of the public not to look beyond their shoulders for those destroying our democracy and of late, burning INEC offices and other government property.