Lagos: AD couldn’t have scored zero votes in Ifako Ijaiye ―  Salis

THE candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in the March 9, 2019 governorship election in Lagos State, Chief Owolabi Salis, has insisted that the election was one fraught with irregularities.

Chief Salis, in a statement personally signed by him, a copy of which was made available to the Nigerian Tribune, contended that the election ought not to be allowed to stand on the grounds that it was not a free and fair contest.

He particularly derided what he called the “doctoring” of the election results to reflect zero votes for him and the AD in Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government, an area where, he said, his party enjoyed a considerable number of supporters and loyalists.

According to Chief Salis, who described the decision of the tribunal and that of the Court of Appeal as “a deliberate destruction of hope for the people,” the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) erred in crediting him and his party with zero votes in an area where it was popular with the electorate.

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The statement reads in part: “To further accentuate the need for a total cancellation of the election, the votes recorded for the AD in the entire Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government in the Final Results on Form EC8B and EC8C is zero, notwithstanding that after a careful study of the election materials, we discovered that votes were recorded in Form EC8A in 79 polling units as a total of 136 votes. If these irregularities could be happening in Ifako-Ijaiye, God knows how much doctoring had occurred to reduce my votes.

“The governorship election that took place on March 9 was unfair to the AD and the good people of Lagos who believe in the tenets of free and fair election.

“We will not stop in our bid to seek justice for Lagosians and liberate them. We are coming to take what rightfully belongs to us and Sanwo-Olu should be prepared to vacate the seat because it was never rightfully his.”

The Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, had validated the decision of the election petition tribunal which had earlier declared Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election, as the validly elected governor of the state.