Ex-Edo NMA Chairman Demands Annulment Of Association’s Election Over Massive Fraud
By Simeon OSAJIE
The immediate past Chairman of Edo State branch of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Udoka Imoisili has called on the national body to set aside the outcome of the State election alleging monumental fraud in the conduct of the election and for lacking in integrity on account of its compromised and corrupted nature.
In the chairmanship election, Dr. Eustace Oseghale trumped his resolute opponent, Dr. Benson Okwara with 629 votes to 327.
In a petition dated 17th August and addressed to the President-in-Council of NMA, Abuja, through the Secretary General, Dr. Imoisili charged that in gross breach of the understanding earlier reached with the agents of the candidates for the different positions, they were deprived of participating in observing the election.
The Consultant Family Physician said that they were only invited a few minutes before the end of the online voting and asked not to be near the control room.
Titled “Petition against the Gross Electoral Irregularities and Constitutional Breaches in the Just Concluded NMA Edo State 2024 Elections”, he further alleged that despite the fact that Edo NMA had no IT expert to monitor the process, a particular candidate brought in two IT experts.
He remarked that in serious breach of trust and transparency, the team which was sent to conduct the online voting by the national body demanded a change in the email used for trial voting just a few minutes before the election commenced in the absence of all electoral committee members, the candidates and their agents.
He petitioned that members who had not voted were informed that they had already voted, noting that one meticulous member notified the voters that the app was telling him that he had voted, and upon investigation, they discovered that his email and phone number had been changed.
The past Edo NMA chairman said that campaign materials for a particular candidate were still being distributed to members even after the elections had begun, aberrations which were ignored.
He wrote that in a very strange manner, a vote was curiously deleted on the directive of the chairman of the Fact Finding Committee (FFC) while voting was going on, wondering if this act of meddlesomeness was part of the mandate of the FFC.
Continuing, Dr. Imoisili wrote that upon reviewing the audit report of the Edo State NMA election on electionrunner.com, as analyzed by cyber security experts based in Canada, so many irregularities were observed.
The petitioner penned: “Cyber security experts have informed us that electionrunner.com is an app that is easy to hack and that a reputable association like NMA should not use it without protection from the risks posed by cyber criminals.
“After facing criticisms in the state for encouraging and introducing electronic voting, it is disheartening to see this very process violated, corrupted, and exploited. I advocate for a thorough review of this electoral process, so that the enthusiasm with which my team convinced members to accept electronic voting in Edo State be not drowned.”
Dr. Imoisili demanded that an independent electoral appeal panel of experts be set up to entertain these complaints, and those from other aggrieved members, noting that ending the outcome of the Independent Appeal Panel, the outcome of the just concluded Edo NMA 2024 elections be set aside for lacking in integrity on account of its compromised and corrupted nature.
The new Edo NMA chairman, Dr. Oseghale, who overwhelmingly defeated Dr. Okwara in the contest, however insisted that he won freely, fairly and squarely and never manipulated the process.
Amplifying Dr. Oseghale, a doctor and IT specialist, Dr. Ekene Asogwa, dismissed allegations of fraud with a wave of the hand, explaining that the process which he ins insisted was free and fair threw up the most popular candidate won.
He added: “IT addresses are re-assigned randomly by the service providers. Re-occurrence of the same IT address didn’t mean that people voted multiple times. It could coincidentally happen that persons may have been assigned the same IT address.”
He stressed: “Nobody with the same IT address voted at the same time. It is not out of place to see multiple voters having a similar public IT address. Voters had to subscribe to the different service providers which landed them a public IT address as against private on their phones. The election was not rigged as being alleged.”
