The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said it is heading to court to quash what it called the illegal declaration of the September 22, 2018 Osun governorship election as inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
A picture taken on September 22, 2018 shows an electoral officer raising a ballot to count results in a ward after the Osun State gubernatorial election in Ede, near Osogbo, Osun State in southwest Nigeria.
The Osun election is seen as a litmus test for the president’s popularity as he seeks a second term in February.The party insisted that the polls had been concluded and results announced in all polling and the collation centres across the state, thus bringing the exercise to its lawful conclusion thus, denying the electoral umpire powers to declare same inconclusive.
In a statement issued by the party’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP accused INEC of working in sync with the ruling party to rob it of its victory on Saturday. “Our electoral law is clear that once an election result is declared, INEC is bound to return a winner.
INEC, in trying to play the card of the defeated All Progressives Congress, APC, contravened the law by refusing to announce a winner, even when the declared results have thrown up a winner.
“Section 69 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) states that inter-alia ‘in an election to the office of the President or governor whether or not contested and in any contested election to any other elective office, the result shall be ascertained by counting the votes cast for each candidate and subject to the provisions of sections 133, 134 and 179 of the constitution, the candidate that receives the highest number of votes shall be declared elected by the appropriate Returning Officer.’
“Concurrently, Section 179 (2), (a) (b) of the constitution directly prescribes that ‘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.
Osun re-run : Omisore lists condition for APC, PDP “INEC’s action in declaring a concluded election as inconclusive is therefore an annulment, totally duplicitous, constitutionally illegal, ultra-vires and as such null and void,” the statement read in part. The party also called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of the Osun State Governorship Election Returning Officer, Professor Joseph Fuwape, for allegedly succumbing to the pressure of the APC in declaring the election as inconclusive.
“It is completely ludicrous, that INEC and the APC are now attempting to divert the narrative from the substance of the election by making outlandish allegations against the PDP and lobbying Civil Society Organizations and Electoral Observers to validate their illegality.
“Even if the Osun governorship election is conducted over and over again, the PDP will still win as the people of the state have chosen the PDP and its candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke. Nevertheless, we insist that the September 22, 2018 election, under our laws, is conclusive and our candidate must be declared winner,” it added.
