Athan Achonu, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Imo State, led a protest at the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja on Thursday.
The demonstration aimed to contest the results of the November 11 poll, where Governor Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner two weeks ago.
Despite INEC’s declaration of Uzodimma securing 540,308 votes to defeat Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 71,503 votes and Achonu with 64,081 votes, both the LP and PDP have vehemently rejected the outcome, citing allegations of widespread irregularities during the electoral process.
During the protest, Achonu and his supporters fervently demanded the Certified True Copies of the election results conducted in Imo State, intensifying their claim that the announced results differ from what is purportedly stored on INEC’s server.
The Labour Party candidate pointed out a notable contrast with the election process in Bayelsa, emphasizing that while it took three days to conclude the elections there, INEC swiftly compiled the Imo ballots and declared the results within a mere two hours.
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He said,
“When collation started after the voting, our state election agent duly asked INEC not to announce any result that collation started very early that day even when voting was going on. They were even uploading results on iREV when voting was taking place. So how did that happen? They were told to go to their backend server and confirm the result they were about to announce. But INEC refused to do that. The returning insisted they should go on because they had a hidden agenda.
“Meanwhile it took Bayelsa which has just eight local governments almost three days to announce their result. But in Imo which has 27 local governments, it took them just two hours to announce the result that was already uploaded.
“So we duly wrote to INEC asking them to review the election. They hurriedly announced the result, even before the seven days allowed for review lapsed. Up till today when we are speaking, we have not received the certified copy of that result despite writing them officially. We will not leave here today until we collect the CTC since INEC has refused to come out and address us.”
Amidst the demonstration, two INEC national commissioners, Mohammed Haruna and Prof Abdullahi Abdu Zuru, emerged to address the gathering. Haruna, urging patience from the protesters, assured them that the commission would promptly address their grievances.
“We understand you have come here with a petition. The national chairman (Prof Yakubu Mahmood) asked the two of us to come here on his behalf to receive your petition. And I assure you, it will be addressed because this is your right.
“The CTC you requested is always collected at the state level. So we have a copy of your letter here now, I assure you it will attended to,” he stated.
