The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo State, Bamidele Benson Akingboye has called for the nullification of the poll.
Akingboye who stated this during a press conference in Akure, the state capital, rejected the results of the election, insisting that the poll was marred by irregularities, saying INEC should conduct a fresh exercise.
His words: “It was supposed to be the day that Ondo people was supposed to liberate themselves from the slavery and the hunger that they’ve been for some time but what I saw was shocking. (0:50) Shocking to me.
“For me, I mentioned to them that this election was not accepted in my unit because they were doing open bazaar auction. PDP will do theirs, APC will do theirs nut I told them that as a credible person, as somebody that has integrity, I will never partake in unlawful acts in Nigeria.
“And as I’ve been saying, if we want a brand new Nigeria, somebody must start it which I’ve shown to the whole world yesterday, that I’m a credible person and I will never abide with their system of electioneering in Nigeria.
“And I believe that what we have seen, the results they’ve put in together, which we’ve been hearing that the results has been written even before the election. They have exhibited it today and we’re rejecting it because it is not the truthful result.”
Akingboye also asked the INEC to declare him as the winner of the election and said “I’m asking that INEC should declare me as the winner of this election because people were supposed to come out to vote for me.
“They chased all our party agents out of their polling units. I’m considering myself as the winner of this election and INEC should declare me the winner of this election,” the candidate declared.
The state chairman of the party, Gbenga Akinbuli also corroborated the candidate, describing the exercise as a sham and a slap on democracy.
“We have come out to voice our minds about the sham that took place on Saturday, the disgrace, the slap on democracy that took place called election.
“We as a political party, we are condemning the Ondo State gubernatorial election that took place on the 16th of November 2024 and we are calling for the immediate cancellation of the election.
“Our reason is clear. It’s very clear. I have never seen an open show of shame like I did yesterday. In my polling unit, Ward 10, Unit 19, Ondo West Local Government, APC was offering N10,000 to vote voters, PDP was offering 7,000, they were doing bazaar, the highest bidder and I saw it with my two eyes.They intimidated our polling unit agent on duty.
“I had to go in and stand in as the agent in my own polling unit because they chased out everybody, even PDP agents. This so-called polling unit, the property to which we had the election, belonged to me, my own personal property,” he said.
According to the Chairman, “The total vote cast on my unit was 175 because people refused to come out, because they threatened them and it got to a time, I had to call my people, go and start knocking at doors, tell people to come out. They said no, that their children had warned them, that they should not come out. That APC had vowed that it will be a do or die elections.
“We are saying that the election was marked by gross malpractices, electoral offense, vote buying, voter intimidation, even writing of votes.
“How can you explain in the local government where the chairman of the campaign committee is from, where in her own polling unit she scored 18 votes and then they are recording for us a total of 22 votes. How is that possible? We had over 2,000 agents, close to 3,000 agents.
“In Okitipupa local government, where the governorship candidate is from, how would they record two votes for the candidate?
“We’re asking for immediate cancellation of that election, we’re asking for the cancellation of that show of shame that took place. I won’t call it an election, it was buyer and seller’s day, it was just like Bazaar.”
He added that if nothing is the done, the party will approach a court of competent jurisdiction to seek redress at the court of law
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on Sunday declared Aiyedatiwa as the winner of the election after polling a total of 366,781 votes to defeat his closest rival, Ajayi Agboola who scored 117,845 votes while ZLP’s Dr Abbas Mimiko, younger brother of the former governor of the state, Dr Olusegun Mimiko came a distance third with 2,692 votes.
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