–Wants Tinubu to intervene and save Nigeria’s democracy
By Chesa Chesa
The Labour Party (LP) candidate in the recent governorship election in Imo State, Sen. Athan Achonu has decried Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s unexplained reluctance to grant access to his lawyers to inspect the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (B-VAS) used during the poll, despite the a court order to that effect.
Achonu, who insists he won the election, is legally challenging the outcome of the poll which saw INEC declaring incumbent governor, Hope Uzodimma as the winner.
Addressing a press conference in his Abuja residence on Wednesday, Achonu noted that the INEC’s crude disobedience of the court order by frustrating his legal team portends grave danger to Nigeria’s democracy.
He said it was a brazen and calculated attempt by the electoral umpire to deny him his right to fair legal challenge of the poll result, quite aware of the limited time he has to tender his evidence before the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.
He further argued that the INEC’s delay in releasing the BVAS materials for inspection seems to be a plot hatched with the government of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to force him to file his petition out of time so that the Tribunal can eventually strike it out on technical grounds.
“What is happening right now is that we went to the Tribunal, got an order for us to be allowed to inspect the BVAS. INEC has refused to let us inspect the BVAS up till now. Lawyers and experts were hired at a very huge cost – N30 million per day – yet they are not allowing us to inspect it despite court order”, he stated.
The governorship candidate called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu whom he described a democracy activist since the days of June 12, 1993 agitation, to intervene and compel INEC to do the right thing.
According to Achonu: “What gives me confidence is that Sen. Bola Ahmed Tinubu was on the streets for June 12, he made us believe that he was a democrat fighting for justice, freedom of choice and equal opportunity.
“He is in the same party with Sen. Hope Uzodimma but this country shouldn’t be about party, it should be about quality of persons, what you represent.
“I was in the senate with the First Lady, Sen. Remi Tinubu, I know the kind of person she is, a person of integrity; how can they allow this kind of thing to happen under their watch?”
He also expressed huge disappointment with the conduct of INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmoud, saying that he promised one thing and did a different thing afterwards.
“When we came to stakeholders meeting, we told the INEC chairman Prof. Mahmoud that there are certain things he needs to put in place for a smooth election. One is the removal of the REC. Second is that collation must take place at the ward level, local government level before the state level.
“We insisted that the result sheets must be signed by three officers, a national commissioner, the REC and each EO will sign that of his local government so that there will be no manipulation of the result sheets and he agreed.
“But surprisingly on the election day, there was no collation at the ward level, even in some local governments. They moved everything to the state office, and in those places where there were insecurity and no election, results were collated, there were cluster voting in Orsu”, Achononu lamented.
The LP candidate however expressed slight hope that he will get justice in the judiciary, because “there are some men of integrity within the judiciary. These are men who hold the power of life and death over us. These are men who are supposed to live above reproach. There must be one or two of them, I hope I come across one of them in my case.
“I still believe in this country no matter what anybody says. Something will happen. Yes, I have come across a lot of men of integrity in this country, very few of them. I want to think that this will be the first test case of the judiciary, let’s see what happens.”
