Certificate of Return: INEC denying me senate leadership position – Uwajumogu

Senator representing Okigwe zone, Benjamin Uwajumogu, who was the All Progressives Congress candidate in February 23 Presidential and National Assembly election, has decried the inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue him with a certificate of return.

Uwajumogu said the non-issuance of the document to him is denying him the opportunity of seeking for a leadership position in the 9th assembly.

The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared the senatorial election in Imo North (Okigwe zone) inconclusive.

This came days after the INEC office in Isiala Mbano Local Government Area in the senatorial district was set ablaze by unidentified persons.

However Uwajumogu in an interview with our correspondent at Isiala Mbano after attending the conferment of an award as ‘ICON of CWO’ on a philanthropist, Chief Tony Chukwu by Catholic Women Organisation of St Michael’s Catholic Church, Umueze 1, claimed that he won the election.

He said that the election was peacefully conducted with all the returns duly made, stressing that the electoral body had relied on a court order obtained by one of the contestants to deny him the certificate of return.

He said, “The election should not have been declared inconclusive because the exercise was duly conducted and official results issued. The problem is that one person went to the court to obtain an injunction and I think that INEC should not use that excuse to deny me the certificate of return .”