Labour Party’s governorship candidate for Imo State, Athan Achonu, alongside a large number of his supporters, staged a demonstration on Thursday at the national headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja. Their primary demand was for INEC to provide them with the certified true copy of the recently concluded state election’s result.
Accompanied by Kennedy Ahanotu, the National Youth Leader, Achonu also accused the electoral umpire of engaging in double standards during the November 11 off-cycle election. This protest took place two weeks after INEC declared Governor Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner.
During the election, the APC candidate received 540,308 votes, defeating Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with 71,503 votes and Achonu, who secured 64,081 votes. However, both opposition candidates rejected the result, claiming that electoral irregularities significantly impacted the election’s integrity.
The protest, which involved a long procession of demonstrators chanting solidarity songs and displaying various banners reading “INEC Give Us Our CTC,” “Respect Our Law,” and “INEC Has Become Headache to Nigerian People,” led to a gridlock in the area.
