Ado-Ekiti: By Our REPfORTERS
Published, Sunday, June 19, 2022
ENGR. SEGUN ONI has vowed not to accept the results of just concluded governorship election in Ekiti State, also not conceding and congratulating the winner as offivially declared by the Chief Returning Officer of the election "because this is not an election".
Segun Oni Campaign Organisaton, SOCO on Sunday, made the decision of Chief Segun Oni, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party , SDP, known while speaking with our reporters, saying the outcome of Saturday’s governorship election was riddle with corruption and as such unacceptable.
The independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, had declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr Biodun Oyebanji as winner of Saturday’s election.
Oyebanji polled 187,057 to defeat candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Engr. Segun Oni, who scored 82,211, while candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bisi Kolawole scored 67,457.
Mr Moses Jolayemi, the spokesman OSF Segun Oni cCampaign oOrganisation, SOCO, accused the APC of engaging in vote buying.
He also accused security agencies of compromise during the election.
Besides, he said the SDP candidate would not concede defeat, saying the SDP hierarchy would meet over the infraction to take necessary steps.
Jolayemi said: “The outcome is unacceptable by us as a party because it is a travesty of democracy. It is a rape on democracy and clear daylight robbery,
He added that the APC has taken advantage of the peoples’ pathetic state of poverty to bribe, corruption them. This was the reason the APC refused to campaign. They were not going round doing rallies; we were the ones campaigning because they knew what they wanted to do.
“Their strategy was simple: buy these peoples’ votes and that is why they kept the people in perpetual poverty so that they can be of use every four years.
"They know that it is difficult for someone who is very hungry to resist cash. Some of them have children that are of voting age; some have four children plus their wife and themselves. “If you multiply N5000 by six, it gives you N30,000, which is a huge amount to these people.
“To make these kind of money huge and important, that is why they (APC) have kept them in that financial bondage.
"In the United States of America, for example, it will be foolhardy for anyone o envelope $10 or $20 for people to vote.
“They will be asking you if you are okay or if you have not gone crazy because what are they going to do with it?
“The basic things of life have been taken of by the government but here, their dignity is already taken off them with the way the APC has kept them.
“The security agencies compromised. The see and buy thing was going on while the security agencies looked the other way.
INEC is also culpable because the arrangement of the polling booth and the ballot boxes was awkward. You wonder why this should be so. The election may appear free but it was not fair.
"It was not free of violence anyway because the third thing they did, was to make use of their thugs.
“We have videos of some of their thugs snatching ballot boxes. What did the security agents do, they looked the other way.”
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