The management of the Labour Get together has headed for the Supreme Court docket to hunt the nullification of the November 11 Imo Governorship ballot after its enchantment for a recent election was thrown out by the enchantment court docket.
The opposition celebration mentioned it perceived bias within the judgments regardless of presenting proof to again its declare of over-voting within the election that returned Governor Hope Uzodimma to workplace.
The Nationwide Publicity Secretary of LP, Obiora Ifoh, disclosed this at a press convention held in Abuja on Monday.
The Unbiased Nationwide Electoral Fee had declared Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress because the winner of the contentious ballot.
The APC candidate swept all of the 27 native governments within the state after he polled 540,308 votes to beat Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Get together and Labour Get together’s Athan Achonu who scored 71,503 votes and 64,081 votes respectively.
However Achonu and the celebration’s management rejected the end result, alleging that the entire variety of voters didn’t match the figures reeled out by the electoral umpire.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, Ifoh argued that regardless of making formal requests to evaluate the over 4,000 BVAS, which have been important to show their case of electoral malpractice, the petitioners encountered deliberate delays and obstructions.
In response to him, solely 30 BVAS models have been finally launched for inspection thereby irritating their case.
He mentioned, “The Supreme Court docket is predicted to behave decisively and uphold the electoral legal guidelines. Given the clear proof of over-voting, we count on the court docket to cancel the flawed election and mandate a recent governorship election in Imo state. This motion is crucial to revive public belief and uphold the integrity of the judicial system.
“The difficulty at hand is obvious. The full variety of licensed accredited voters for the November 2023 governorship election, as licensed by INEC, was simply over 500,000. Nonetheless, the entire votes counted, which was used to declare the candidate of APC winner exceeded 700,000, leading to an over-voting discrepancy of greater than 200,000.
“We had raised this situation through the election as we had clear proof of abuse of electoral practices together with falsification and mutilation of end result sheets, harassment of the Labour Get together’s brokers, snatching of poll containers and open vote shopping for. In response to Part 53 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), any election marred by over-voting ought to be cancelled.
“This provision is unambiguous and doesn’t go away room for different interpretations. Regrettably, regardless of the overwhelming proof of over-voting, each the election tribunal and the enchantment court docket failed to use this clear authorized commonplace. The state of affairs is eerily harking back to the Supreme Court docket’s controversial resolution in 2020, the place an identical situation of over-voting was ignored, resulting in the set up of a candidate who had initially positioned third.”