TheCable

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.”