LG Elections: Imo Labour Party heads to court.
2 min readThe Imo State chapter of Labour Party has called for the sack and subsequent prosecution of the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Imo State, one Prof Sylvia Agu over her alleged role in the recently concluded general elections in the state. In a press conference addressed by the party members and candidates of Imo House of Assembly election, the party through its spokesman Precious Nwadike indicted the INEC REC over electoral irregularities, corruption and violence that characterized the March 18 state assembly elections in the state. The Imo LP tried to justify its position by saying that the Imo REC, “showed glaring signs of corruption, incompetence and total disregard to the ordinances of the electoral guidelines and electoral act”.
The Imo LP also accused the REC of deliberately refusing to release the certified true copies of the results of the elections to them so as to enable them file petitions at the electoral tribunal.
Another allegation from the LP candidates holds that elections did not hold in many wards across the state and the Imo REC used the outlawed Ebubeagu security outfit to intimidate the voters and forged the results in favour of APC.
The LP spokesman pointedly noted: “It is no longer news that the Imo REC for the period of the two elections was seen holding meetings with agents of All Progressive Congress, from where she took instructions to carry out all her hatchet jobs against Imo people and only visited her office at Port Harcourt Road with heavy security personnel provided her by the APC government in Imo State of which principal has become the latest lord of the Manor. Suffice it to say that she sold her conscience by endorsing the charade called elections in Imo which was marred by massive rigging and falsification of results polling units while accepting results written by APC agents without BVAS accreditation for which the new electoral act says is a nullity abinitio. All this she did with utmost disregard to her status as a Professor.’’
The Imo REC was also accused of refusing to allow the LP candidates and their agents to collate the results of the election in all the local government councils in the state.
In view of the above, the Imo LP through her 27 candidates for the recently concluded Imo House of Assembly elections has concluded plans to seek legal redress over the matter. Last week, the Labour Party candidate for Njaba LGA Chief Macdonald Dire confirmed the resolution of his party to seek legal redress to Umuaka Times.
In the local government state assembly elections held on March 18, 2023, APC swept the votes in all the 27 councils across the state. Many saw this development as controversial victory.