*Insists party won Enugu guber Emameh Gabriel in Abuja
The Labour Party has warned that it would no longer tolerate any form of intimidation and oppression of its members by any group or political party in the future as witnessed in the just concluded general election.
The party has also insisted that it won the governorship election of March 18, 2023, in Enugu State, declaring that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), acted contrary to the Electoral Act to declare the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the election despite the infractions observed during the process.
National Chairman of the party, Julius Abure, stated this yesterday in Abuja during a joint press briefing with Labour Party Coalition for True Democracy.
Abure, who addressed journalists through a telephone call during the briefing described the “2023 general election a shadow of the gains of electoral developments in country in the past.”
According to him, “It’s an election that took us back to 2007. All the gains recorded in recent times, all the electoral evolution, reforms and gains we have accumulated from the conceding of defeat by former president Goodluck Jonathan to Muhammadu Buhari have all been eroded by the outcome of the 2023 general election.
“In Abia and Enugu, those are state that we won clearly. We won Enugu State clearly. We were already leading in Enugu with 15,000 votes before the governor attempted to use his local government to upturn the results. The returning officer has been complaining and confessing that she was coerced to declare that result. Same would have taken place in Abia if not for the resistance of the returning officer.
“We won the Senate in the state even after introducing the younger brother of our former candidate that was assassinated. So, where did they get the results from?
“Unfortunately, what we see in Nigeria today can be likened to what what you see in animal kingdom, where somebody will carry a gun and say if you are not voting for PDP or APC, don’t come and vote. Or where people are voting and when they see that they are losing, they unleash chaos. And the security men on duty will look the other way. That can only happen in an animal kingdom; it can’t happen in a sane society.”
“This is the last time that we will get to the field to vote and they will use gun and intimidation on us. In any other election, we will be ready. I am saying it, that going forward, we will be ready for them,” he said.
Spokesperson of the group, Ken Eluma Asogwa, described the declaration of the candidate of ruling PDP in the state as winner of the election by INEC as a heist because “collation was suspended midway into the declaration of a winner of the gubernatorial election due to the malpractice that took place in Nkanu East LGA of the State.”
