Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate in Imo State, Senator Athan Achonu, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC to annul election results tainted by diversion and illicit thumb-printing.
Achonu responded to alleged irregularities in the recent Imo governorship election, citing instances where INEC staff declined to sign or upload results.
He highlighted interference requiring security intervention and emphasized the need for fairness, calling for the cancellation of affected areas and a rerun to uphold democracy.
“In so many places, it is either the INEC staff refused to sign the result or refuse to upload. You saw what happened here. It took the intervention of security operatives, who came here before they started uploading the results. The machine they said could not upload suddenly started uploading. Maybe, if I wasn’t from this area, it wouldn’t have been possible.
“There are even places in Aboh Mbaise where they did not have result sheets.
“We are winning massively on the ground. They have done everything humanly possible to thwart that but we will not allow that; Imolites will not allow that. I hope INEC is hearing me clearly now. They should declare our results the way they are. They can’t change our results.
“The All Progressives Congress, APC government should be ashamed of themselves. They have lost the election and they are trying to change the result.
“In Orlu, they moved the entire electoral materials to the house of a traditional ruler. Orsu was worse; it’s madness. They were doing cluster voting. They blocked people from coming out to vote and then brought some people with cards they hired from somewhere to vote, claiming they were the people who ran away from home.”
“Democracy is under attack but we are resisting it. That is why you see all these people here so that we can have proper democracy and good governance.
“Of course, INEC must cancel everywhere this madness occurred and order a rerun,” Achonu said.
Written by Chibuike Ezekwesili (Obinwannem News correspondent Enugwu State)
Date: November 12, 2023
Published by Ugwu Okechukwu (Obinwannem ndi Igbo)
