BY VICTOR BUORO, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday said the declaration of the Osun Governorship election as inconclusive by the Independent National Election Commission (INEC), is a sordid robbery of the franchise of the people of the state, who participated in the election.
The PDP therefore declared that it rejects in its entirety, the declaration of the September 22, 2018 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) saying that the Osun State Governorship election is inconclusive.
The PDP insists that the process was conclusive adding that its candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, who won a total of 254, 698 votes, is in clear lead and should be immediately declared winner by INEC, having met the requirements of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan explained that 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.
Ologbondiyan further said; “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 to 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 PDP spokesman also said that the people by their votes, have overwhelmingly declared for party’s candidate and therefore are not ready to accept any attempt by anybody to use any means whatsoever to steal their mandate that was freely given by the people.
Ologbondiyan said the PDP is for peace, but will not hesitate to use every force available in a democracy to face any attempt to subvert the will of the people or rig it out in this election.
The PDP therefore charged 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. Anything short of this is definitely not acceptable to the PDP and the people of Osun and it is a direct recipe for crisis.
The opposition Party cautioned INEC and the APC to note that the game is up, adding that the people of Osun state have decided in favour of the PDP and that has become a fact that can never be altered.
