Lai Mohammed, minister of
information, says there would have been no room for a rerun in Osun state if
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were in power.
On Sunday, the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC)
declared Osun governorship poll and scheduled a rerun for Thursday.
Ademola Adeleke, candidate of the
PDP polled 254,699 ahead of Isiaka Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress
(APC) who had 254,345 votes.
The commission had said the
number of cancelled votes, 3,498, exceeded the difference between the two
leading parties. The margin is 353 votes.
In a statement on Monday,
Mohammed who is chairman of APC campaign council for the Osun election, said in
the spirit of “true democracy” the ruling party did not prevent state
institutions from carrying out their duties.
The minister described the call
of PDP that Adeleke be declared winner of the election as “excessive
grandstanding.”
He said rather than resort to
threats, the PDP could either go to court or decide not to participate in the
rerun.
“In its time, there would have
been no room for a supplementary election in Osun because the PDP would have
used state institutions to hijack the election proper, as it did in Ekiti in
2014,” the statement read.
“But in its deafening hysteria,
the PDP pretends not to understand the real meaning of the outcome of the Osun
election – that the ruling APC did nothing to prevent the state institutions
that organised the election from carrying out their duties, in the spirit of
true democracy.
“Local and foreign observers have
hailed INEC and the security agencies for a well-organised election. We join
them in this commendation.
“Our confidence in the ability of
the relevant state institutions involved in the Osun election remains unshaken.
So also is our belief that every
disagreement resulting from the election must be resolved through the
democratic process, rather than a resort to threats of fire and brimstone.
“Rather then resort to threats,
like the PDP is doing now, the APC simply submitted to the democratic process
and the supplementary election was peacefully conducted in 91 polling units
across 18 of the 21 local governments in the state. Where were these emergency,
ready-for-hire analysts then?”
Mohammed commended the Osun
people for deepening the country’s democracy by “eschewing violence and
exercising their franchise in orderly manner.”
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