Abia State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has accused Prof. Nnenna Oti, the Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the March 18 governorship election, of being “unfair” to the parties that participated. In an interview with Channels TV on Monday night, Ikpeazu claimed Oti was “visibly happy” because she had “favoured” a particular party. He said that, before the poll, he conducted background checks on the returning officer and complained to INEC that she might not be impartial because her name coincided with that of a contender. He received assurances from the electoral body that she would be fair.
On March 22, Oti—who also serves as Vice‑Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri—declared Labour Party candidate Alex Otti the winner of the Abia governorship election. The announcement came after the final collation of results resumed in Umuahia, the state capital, more than 48 hours after INEC had suspended the exercise.
A week later, on March 28, Oti told staff and students at the university that she had been threatened and pressured during the poll but had stood her ground. “As an electoral officer, I have never in my life participated in any election, but duty called, and I made my inquiries from Abuja,” she said. “If I perish, I perish. They came with threats, money and intimidation.”
Ikpeazu responded that Oti’s claims were “very unfortunate” because she lacked the power to manipulate the results. “If she is a professor, she doesn’t even have the capacity to change the numbers, which come from the units, are collated at the wards, then at the local governments, and finally presented to her to add up and announce,” he explained. “I have never met her, and if I had, she should come forward publicly. I am shocked that she is making a big noise out of nothing.”
The governor reiterated his earlier suspicion, noting the coincidence between Oti’s name and that of the Labour Party candidate. “When I saw the name similarity and traced a bit of her background, I complained to INEC that she would not be fair, but they assured me she had been profiled. I am still shocked. Her post‑election statements suggest she was visibly happy with what she did, indicating a bias in favour of a party. It appears she had something in mind before she arrived,” Ikpeazu concluded.
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