The Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ekiti State has accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of plans to use the judiciary to sack the two elected house of assembly members under the SDP and turn the state into a one-party state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared SDP candidates, Tunde Omotayo and Dele Ogunsakin winners of the Ise-Orun and Ekiti East constituencies respectively during the March 18 House of Assembly election into the 26 seats in the state.
The APC has approached the Election Petition Tribunal to challenge the result and outcome of the election in the two constituencies won by the SDP candidates.
The SDP chairman in the state, Dr Dele Ekunola who spoke with newsmen in Ado-Ekiti on Monday at the party secretariat called on the people to prevail on the ruling party not to involve in anti-democratic moves thereby strangulating the democracy, “by using the tribunal to remove the two elected House of Assembly members which they are to be inaugurated by June.”
He said, “We must cry out now. We did not cry out during the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal of which the outcome shocked the people of Ekiti unsatisfactorily.
“I want to remind you that these are the people parading themselves as democrats but engaging in an anti-democratic process. They don’t believe in the rule of law. All that they believe is to use the backdoor to achieve their aims without considering the aftermath effect on the generality of the people.
“Look at the time in Ekiti State when we had 13/13 House of Assembly members, we had a robust and progressive legislation which brought tremendous development to Ekiti State but these APC in Ekiti State doesn’t want opposition at all but Ekiti people will resist their anti-democratic moves to hijack the two House of Assembly members elects from Ise/ Orun and Ekiti East Constituencies.
“We are calling on notable Ekiti indigenes and Nigerians to help us prevail on the Ekiti APC to stop their nefarious activities to highjack these two seats through illegal judicial means with the intention to outrightly disallowing opposition in the tate.”
But, the APC spokesman, Segun Dipe in a swift reaction said the ruling party has the right under the constitution to approach the court when aggrieved with election results, like the SDP did after the last governorship election.
Dipe said, “They(SDP) used the tribunal to sack the governor, Biodun Oyebanji after the last governorship election and we did not say they wanted to turn the state to SDP, even after they took it up to the supreme court and lost.
“We didn’t fault their legal right for doing so. If someone now feel cheated, which is the beauty of democracy by giving you room to go to court and question certain results; Does that make going to court turn the state into a one-party state. That means they already knew what they did during the election and the outcome of the tribunal matter.”
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