BY GLORIA USMAN, ABUJA – The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has denied frustrating efforts by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its candidate, Prof. Kolapo Olusola, from filing a petition to challenge the outcome of the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State.
The electoral commission explained that contrary to the claims by the PDP candidate that his legal team was denied access to sensitive materials he require to support his petition at the tribunal, it only instructed its officials in Ekiti to carefully safeguard the ballot papers to ensure that they are not tampered with.
Speaking at an interactive session with a coalition of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), in Abuja, National Commissioner of INEC in charge of Publicity, Prince Solomon Soyebi, said it concerned about a situation where any of the contending parties would pour ink on the ballot papers.
He explained that while the PDP and Prof Olusola might have had some difficulty, their legal team are in Ekiti State and are working closely with INEC office, adding that the INEC office in Ekiti has been instructed to cooperate with them.
According to Soyebi; “What we just said was that they should be very careful, especially with our ballot papers. We will not like a situation where someone will go where we keep our ballot papers with ink and then pour it on some of them.
“This is because you cannot put anything beyond these political parties. I am not making allegations, but we are just being proactive. We are going to safeguard these papers, but whatever they asked for, I believe was being issued as at yesterday that I talked with the REC”.
The Ekiti PDP governorship candidate Prof Olusola, who is challenging the declaration of Dr Kayode Fayemi of the APC as winner of the governorship poll, accused INEC of deliberately withholding the election materials in a bid to frustrate him in filing a petition within the constitutional stipulated time.
While acknowledging that the law mandated that such petitions must be filed within 21 days after the conduct of the election, Olusola noted that over 10 days had elapsed since the Ekiti polls were held.
