PDP condemns INEC’s declaration of Osun governorship election as inconclusive

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has condemned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) declaration of the September 22, 2018, Osun State Governorship election as inconclusive.

The party insisted that the process was conclusive and its candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, who won a total of 254, 698 votes, is in clear lead and should be immediately declared the winner by INEC, having met the requirements of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

According to the party, 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.

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.

“The declaration of the election as inconclusive, by INEC, is, therefore, a sordid robbery of the franchise of the people of Osun State, who participated in the election”.

PDP in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of pressurising INEC to declare the election inconclusive.

“It is instructive to state that the PDP will no longer accept inconclusive elections as a 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 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.

“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 statement added.

The party called on the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to declare their 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 a crisis”.
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