In the petition signed by Abia State’s Director of Sports, Comrade Obioma George, the state alleged that the conduct of the elections was not free and fair, accusing the National Sports Commission’s (NSC) zonal coordinator of bias against Abia State “by refusing to allow the newly inaugurated Abia State Athletics chairman to vote.”

  In the petition entitled: Protest against the conduct of the South-East AFN zonal election and the need to cancel the election, Abia State said: “When the new chairman of Abia State Athletics Association, Onyebuchi Chukwu, came to the election with the introduction letter, which is a passage to vote in the election, it was accepted by the chairman of the electoral committee, Utobo Emmanuel, but rejected by the National Sports Commission (NSC) South-East coordinator because Innocent lheme, who is also from Abia State and is contesting, has been the Athletics chairman of Abia and cannot be removed because the election was by the corner. He doesn’t have the right to choose Abia, who will be our chairman.

  “At the end of the long argument between me and him, he overruled me and allowed a former chairman to vote for Abia instead of the new chairman, who was also on the ground. All my presentations and arguments which lasted for over an hour fell on deaf ears hence this petition.”

  He urged the AFN to cancel the election and allow the state’s right to representative vote as stipulated by law. An official of the Abia State Sports Council, who pleaded anonymity, told The Guardian that apart from disenfranchising the state, some hoodlums drove away some of the stakeholders from the venue of the polls.

  “We knew that something was not right when we started hearing gunshots just before the beginning of the exercise,” the source, who pleaded anonymity, said.

  At the elections, which featured representatives of the five states of the zone, Innocent Iheme defeated Victor Okorie 3-2 to emerge as South East zonal representative in the AFN.