The Imo State chapter of the Labour Party (LP) has raised alarm over plans of the State’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deny their legal team access to Certified True Copies of documents used for the November 11 governorship poll.
Recall that after the polls, All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Hope Uzodimma polled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 71,503 votes; and Athan Achonu of LP who secured 64,081 votes.
The LP has since disassociated itself from the outcome saying the election was characterized by “attacks, intimidation and stiff opposition to the will of the masses.”
Chibuikem Diala, Media head, Achonu Campaign Organisation, in a statement lamented that the documents denial is coming after the Party’s legal team has made an official request to that effect.
“It has come to our notice that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Imo State is trying to deny our legal team access to electoral documents. This is after an official request has been made by our solicitors to the State INEC Office duly acknowledged and received on November 15, 2023.
“It is pertinent at this stage to alert the National Chairman of the INEC and the security agencies, of this delay tactic which may be to further deny our party and the candidate of Labour Party in the November 11 election justice. This is unacceptable and we request that INEC do the needful immediately as time is of the essence,” Diala said.
According to him, some of the pertinent questions begging for answers is that; “if INEC does not have anything to hide, and is willing to come to equity with clean hands, why then are they delaying the release of the CTC of documents requested by the Imo Labour Party legal team?”
He also stressed that if INEC was so efficient in announcing the results of 27 Local Government Areas in less than 12 hours after the elections, it shouldn’t take the electoral umpire over 144 hours to issue the documents backing their pronouncements.
“We only hope that this delay is not a decoy by Imo State INEC and agents of the APC-led government to perfect their rigging by tampering with sensitive materials in the INEC office.
“This strategy to deny the people of Imo State the opportunity to have a leader of their choice will not work as we call on INEC to do the needful and stop taking Imolites for granted.
“Therefore, we call on the Security agencies and the INEC led by Prof Mamoud to do all they can to ensure that the certified true copies are released as requested and timely too,” he added.
