Even as a new President General has emerged for practitioners of the Igbo extraction in the Nigerian maritime industry, a barrage of allegations bordering on irregularities have trailed the elections which threw up Chief Damian Obianigwe as the new leader.
In his first post-elections reaction, an aspirant for the post of president general, Dr Basil Nwolisa alleged that the election was massively rigged, adding further that non-Igbos, especially, Yoruba and Hausa also voted.
He blamed his defeat on the alleged rigging.
Even as a new President General has emerged for practitioners of the Igbo extraction in the Nigerian maritime industry, a barrage of allegations bordering on irregularities have trailed the elections which threw up Chief Damian Obianigwe as the new leader.
In his first post-elections reaction, an aspirant for the post of president general, Dr Basil Nwolisa alleged that the election was massively rigged, adding further that non-Igbos, especially, Yoruba and Hausa also voted.
He blamed his defeat on the alleged rigging.
Dr Nwolisa who spoke on our sister product; Shipping Position Live on Star FM via a telephone also added a shocker when he alleged that the: ‘’The Igbo Maritime Forum is not registered under the Corporate Affairs Commission and as far as I am concerned that election was rigged’’.
Buttressing the allegation of rigging, he specifically said that “there was a certain Abimbola Emmanuel and one Mohammed Abubakar that voted on the day of election. The security personnel on ground also voted and this are some of the reasons why the country cannot move forward.
Nwolisa, who is the secretary of Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agent [ANLCA], PTML Chapter, consequently described the election to be a total flop and one that was schemed to produce a pre-determined result.
But reacting to the allegations, the chairman electoral committee of the association, chief Achike Molokwu told Shipping Position Daily yesterday that Dr Nwolisa’s outburst is typical of every Nigerian who lost an election. “Nigerians don’t like to accept defeat, this has been our tradition in this country, he should accept defeat, it is a clear defeat”, he stressed.
On the allegation that the number of votes that were cast was higher than the number of eligible voters, chief Molokwu disagreed. According to him, the Igbo Maritime Forum has 511 members, out of which, the eventual winner polled 340, while Dr Nwolisa polled 157.
He added that the allegation could not be true since, the number of votes cast was not even up to the total number of registered members of the forum.
Our correspondent, who witnessed the election process, however reported that indeed only 488 persons were displayed as having being registered and eligible to vote on that day.
On the allegation that the Igbo Maritime Forum is an unregistered body, chief Molokwu expressed surprise, saying that it was unfortunate that Dr Nwolisa would turn around to label the body as unregistered.
“This is a forum to which he had belonged for many years, it is this forum that he rode on to become the secretary general of a chapter of ANLCA, how come it is now that he lost an election that he suddenly realized that it is unregistered”, the electoral committee chairman wondered.
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