Sen. Athan Nneji Achonu of the Labour Party (LP) has asked people to vote for him in the November 11 governorship race in Imo State.
Achonu told reporters in Abuja that he was busy with his campaign, even though the court case that wasn’t about him was a distraction. This was in response to a ruling by the Supreme Court that upheld his candidacy for the Labour Party and the leadership of the party under Bar Julius Abure.
Basil Maduka took an appeal to the Supreme Court against the Labour Party over its candidate for governor of Imo State. The court threw out the case on the grounds of locus standi.
Additionally, five judges—including Iyang Okoro—told the appellant to stop abusing the legal system and wasting time in lower courts all the way up to the Supreme Court.
Lamidi Apapa’s candidate, Joseph Ukaegbu, aka Ikenga, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were also involved in the case. The Supreme Court turned down their request for a consequential order as well.
To which Achonu replied, “With this, I want to call on the people of Imo State to get rid of all doubt and work for our success.” My primary was free and fair, and I won. I have been working hard on my campaign. It is important for the people of Imo to know that I am the Labour Party candidate and that they should keep working for me.
“I’m calling on the people of Imo to get out and vote so they can take back their state from the people who caused problems.”
“People only need to call INEC to make sure that the candidate is the real person they say they are.”
“Some people took their case to the Federal High Court, but it was thrown out.” When they tried to appeal, the same thing happened. The case was finally thrown out after they went to the Supreme Court. All of their claims have been thrown out. “They want to confuse people in Imo,” Achonu said.
The Labour Party said that the Supreme Court’s decision ended the Lamidi Apapa-led camp’s plan to take over the party, which meant that they no longer had the power to choose candidates.
Barrister Okwudili Anozie, the lawyer for the Labour Party, told the media soon after the verdict, “Today at the Supreme Court, the antics of Basil Maduka and his partner Joseph Ukaegbu, alias Ikenga, were put to an end as they met their Waterloo at the Apex Court.”
They lied to Imolites about everything, including how the decisions of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal really stood. Today was the conclusion of all their lies and deceit.
“Once their lies were shown to the Supreme Court today and were found to be false, Basil’s counsel immediately withdrew his trick appeal that was meant to give credibility to Ukaegbu’s fake primaries that never happened.”
As a first-year law student, Ukaegbu’s lawyer knew that a respondent cannot ask for a consequential order, so the Supreme Court did not consider his request. This is especially true in this case, where the appeal was denied.
The LP said in a statement that Obiora Ifoh, their national press secretary, had signed that it was a day of reckoning for bad people whose only objective was to prevent Imolites from achieving their goal of taking Imo back through Senator Athan Nneji Achonu.