The Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) has rejected the declaration of the Osun state governorship election as
inconclusive.
The Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the election inconclusive, saying the
requirement for a winner to emerge on first ballot was not met.
Ademola Adeleke, candidate of the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled majority vote of 254,698 while Isiaka
Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) followed with 254,345 votes,
leaving a difference of 353.
Joseph Afuwape, INEC’s returning
officer, had said since the total number of cancelled votes, 3,498, exceeded
the difference between the two leading parties (353), it was impossible for any
party to be declared as winner.
But Kola Ologbondiyan, national
publicity secretary of the PDP, described the declaration as a “sordid robbery
of the franchise of the people of the state”, calling on INEC to immediately
declare Adeleke the winner.
“Section 179 (2) (a)(b) of the
1999 Constitution, (as amended), is clear and very unambiguous in spelling out
the conditions for returning a candidate to the office of governor of a state,”
he said in a statement.
“This section states inter-alia,
‘A candidate for an election to the office of Governor of a State shall be
deemed to have been duly elected where, there being two or more candidates –
(a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election; and (b) he has not
less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of
all the local government areas in the State.
“It is obvious that having failed
in their schemes to alter the final results due to the resistance of the
people, the APC had to bear pressure on INEC to declare the election
inconclusive so as to pave way for the perfection of their manipulative
schemes, which the people of Osun state have firmly resisted so far.
“Instead of yielding to the evil
machination of the APC, INEC should have summoned the patriotic courage to
immune itself and end this needless controversy by returning the PDP and
declare our candidate as the winner.
“It is instructive to state that
the PDP will no longer accept inconclusive elections as subterfuge by the APC
attain its dubious electoral manipulative schemes in our nation.
“The people of Osun state and the
entire nation are already aware that the PDP won this election. They have the
authentic figures from the polling units and know the candidate the voters
prefer.”
The party said it would not
hesitate to use any means available to resist the rigging of the election
result.
“The people by their votes, have
overwhelmingly declared for our candidate and we are not ready to accept any
attempt by anybody to use any means whatsoever to steal our mandate freely
given by the people.
“The PDP is for peace, but we
will not hesitate to use every force available in a democracy to face any
attempt to subvert the will of the people or rig us out in this election.
“The PDP therefore charges the
Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to avoid the fury of the people by
immediately reversing this fraudulent decision of the Resident Electoral
Commissioner and declaring our candidate the winner of the election.”
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