The Labour Party (LP) candidate in the November governorship election in Imo State, Senator Athan Achonu, at the weekend, said he will defeat other candidates, including the incumbent governor, Hope Uzodinma.
Achonu said the last general elections in the State, is a clear pointer to what is expected in the governorship polls, maintaining that LP won Imo State convincingly.
He spoke when he hosted Imo indigenes in Abuja, as parts of ongoing consultations, ahead of the polls.
He said though Uzodinma is the incumbent governor, he will be defeated. He also said the problem of insecurity must be fixed in order to restore peace in the state.
He said: “It is not strange to see incumbent governors being defeated in an election. Remember Hope Uzodimma came from the PDP to snatch the ticket from an incumbent governor who wanted to put in his in-law.
So Imo is a peculiar place. Look at Owerri municipal council where the candidate of Labor Party went to collect his result from INEC. He was arrested or kidnapped, bundled by the police and taken to the dreaded place they keep political prisoners.
“For example, you have 12,000 accredited voters for that election on that day, but the APC candidate had 79,000. So you can see that Imo is Labour Party. I do not have any challenge in taking part in that election.
The people who are referred to as brutal politically are tagged so because of the number of deaths in the state. We have over a thousand uncollected bodies in the mortuary and then over 900 dead.
“The last time the civil society made that press conference. Look at the latest one In Ukwa. They burnt houses, killed people.
“I agree that there is a lot of brutality going on in Imo state. That is why I am running to check all these so it doesn’t continue. I want to bring in security to my state because that is where I live. That is where I earn a living.
“My people don’t go home any longer. Even the senatorial zone of the incumbent governor. His people don’t go home for fear of the unknown. We have to stop it. His party, the APC doesn’t condone violence.
