The Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate in Imo State, Senator Athan Achonu, expressed deep concern on Saturday, asserting that democracy in Nigeria is currently facing a significant threat due to the conduct of the election in the state.
Senator Achonu decried what he claimed were extensive instances of electoral manipulations during the election, highlighting the alleged refusal of some INEC staff to sign or upload results. According to him, the intervention of security operatives became necessary in certain areas before the results could be uploaded, raising questions about the integrity of the electoral process.
“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,” Achonu remarked.
Despite the observed irregularities, the LP candidate remained optimistic about his chances, confidently stating, “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.”
Senator Achonu also criticized the All Progressives Congress (APC) government, accusing them of attempting to manipulate the election results.
He insisted that the people were determined to resist any infringement on the democratic process.
“The All Progressives Congress government should be ashamed of themselves. They have lost the election, and they are trying to change the result.
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,” he concluded.
