The Peoples Democratic Party candidate in the February 3 bye-election for Ebonyi South Zone, Barrister Silas Onu, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are at odds over the alleged increase in the price of certified True Copy of documents obtainable from the commission.
Barrister Onu accused the commission of subtly obstructing his efforts and the process of filing a petition against the winner of the polls, Prof. Anthony Ani of the All Progressives Congress, in court.
Onu claimed that the standard charge of N10 for a page of Certified True Copy had been increased and set at N300 for him, apparently to discourage him from filing the appeal.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP Weekend in Abakaliki, Barrister Onu said, “INEC connived to bring a court action against me, leading to a bizarre judgment delivered two days before the election.
“INEC is now actively ensuring that we do not get the electoral materials necessary for filing our petition. We applied for CTC, and since then, it has been one excuse after another. They charged N300 per page for CTC, while the standard amount for CTC remains N10 per page.
“Then they provided a private account number belonging to one Ibrahim for the payment of the N300 per page for CTC. We have refused to pay, and they are not showing up to discharge their duty. We must make this known to the public to see how INEC has become fully and unapologetically partisan in the discharge of their duty,” he said.
In response, the head of the legal department, Ibrahim Obiahu, dismissed the allegation as baseless, stating, “It’s not true. That’s not true. Even though I shouldn’t speak on this, it’s not true.”
