Amid the stalemate over the outcome of the March 18 Abia State Governorship and State Assembly elections, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Prof Gregory Ibe, has congratulated the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Dr Alex Otti.

Ibe, on Monday, while the declaration of the result was being awaited wrote: “Therefore, ahead of the formal declaration of the official result I want to congratulate my brother Dr Alex Otti of the Labour Party for his consistency so far in the battle to liberate Abia from the shackles of underdevelopment and well deserved victory at the polls”.

The message put on his PROGICO letter head and signed by him with the heading; ABIANS SHOULD KEEP HOPE ALIVE, also challenged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to solve the impasse over the governorship election result.

Hear Ibe: “Finally, I want to enjoin the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to leave no stone unturned in their effort to solve the current impasse by eliminating from the ongoing process of collation of results, obvious cases of electoral fraud, and by so doing ensure substantial compliance to statutory provision of the new electoral act, especially as it pertains to conduct of elections using BVAS machines”.

Ibe who noted that the election was marred by wide spread irregularities across Abia state however appealed to Abians to remain calm and keep hope alive.

According to him, “Though information sourced from our election situation room confirms wide spread irregularities across the state, with Obingwa leading some other Local Government Areas in recording the unique malfeasance of non deployment BVAS machines it is no longer news that the Labour Party has so far garnered sufficient vote to emerge victorious.”

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