The Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate in the recently concluded Imo state election, Athan Achonu, accuses security operatives of colluding with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to manipulate the election results in the state.
Achonu, who secured the third position with 64,081 votes, compared to Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 71,503 and the incumbent governor, Hope Uzodimma, who emerged as the winner with a substantial vote tally of 540,308, addressed newsmen in his country home in Ehime Mbano local government area of Imo state.
The 64-year-old lamented that his party supporters and voters were allegedly intimidated and harassed during the election, expressing dissatisfaction with the election outcome that, according to him, does not truly reflect what transpired at the polling units.
In his words, “It is a very sad day for democracy, for good governance, for freedom of choice, and equal opportunity. 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?”
Achonu contended that the Returning officer should have halted collation following a petition by his party agent, citing discrepancies between the results uploaded to the IREV and what the collation officers presented at the state collation centre. He concluded by stating his intention to challenge the election outcome in court.
| Channels TV
