Clinton Amadi, the Labour Party’s candidate for the Imo State House of Assembly election in the Owerri Municipal State Constituency, has been released from police custody.
Amadi was released on Thursday after being arrested on Tuesday at the INEC secretariat in Owerri, the state capital, where he had gone to obtain Certified True Copies of the INEC results in order to file his case at the Election Petitions Tribunal, according to reports.
According to a source who did not want to be identified for fear of retaliation, the House of Assembly candidate was released on Thursday from the grasp of the men of the Tiger Base of the state police command after they realised his lawyers had missed the deadline for filing the post-election matter at the Tribunal.
A chieftain of the LP in the state, Fabian Ihekwueme told newsmen that Amadi, who served as a lawmaker at the state House of Assembly between 2007 and 2011, had gone home.
He said, “He was released Thursday after they learnt that his Lawyers had already filed his Election petition in the Tribunal. They were keeping him because they didn’t want him to file his case. But luck ran out of them. Clinton has filed his case with the certified True Copies.
INEC had declared Ugochukwu Obodo of the All Progressives Congress the winner of the election but Amadi said that from the results posted on the INEC’s portal he won the election.
His arrest by the police had generated public condemnation with many calling for his immediate release.