Imo Guber: Third Place LP’s Achonu Reject INEC Results, Heads To Court

Athan Achonu, the Governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the just concluded Imo state Governorship election, has claimed that security operatives teamed up with the All Progressives Congress (APC) to rig the election in the state.

VerseNews reports that Achonu took 3rd place with 64,081 votes, whereas Samuel Anyanwu from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) earned 71,503 and the winner, the incumbent governor, Hope Uzodimma won with an impressive tally of 540,308 votes.

At his country home in Ehime Mbano local government area of Imo state, the 64-year-old addressed newsmen and made the allegation that his party’s supporters and voters had been intimidated and harassed during the election, leading to the outcome not reflecting what had actually happened at the polling sites.

“It is a very sad day for democracy, for good governance for freedom of choice and equal opportunity,” he said.

“Yesterday security agencies of this country raped our democracy. It was a big shock, I am just recovering from it this morning.

“The DSS, Police and the military raped our democracy it was like a coup by the security agencies, it wasn’t INEC.”

“INEC was scared, they brought people from different states of the country and when they came they were willing to work. But when you see the security agents that are supposed to protect you where they behead people like chickens and are doing the bidding of the government, what do you do?

He contended that the Returning Officer should have halted the collation due to a grievance voiced by the representative from his party which asserted that the figures uploaded to the IREV by the polling units contradicted those presented by the collation officers at the state collation center. He vowed to take legal action against the result of the election.