The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2018 Osun state governorship election, Ademola Adeleke, has described Thursday’s re-run election as a “charade.”
According to him, hoodlums had taken over Polling Unit One, Ward Eight in Orolu area of Osun state in spite of the presence of many security operatives.
It was gathered that thugs were on ground to intimidate voters as no fewer than 100 police operatives and officials of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps deployed in the unit could stop them.
And speaking through his campaign, Adeleke said because there were reports of violence in some of the local government areas where the supplementary elections were held, the poll lacked credibility.
The campaign office said, “The whole world is witnessing a charade in the name of election, a deliberate effort at imposition of a discredited leadership on the suffering people of Osun State through undisguised brutal force.
“Applying all standards, today’s supplementary poll is a non-event as all norms of electoral process are violated.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the September 22 election inconclusive, fixing September 27 for rerun.
Declaring the outcome of the election at the INEC headquarters in Osogbo on Sunday, 23 September, the commission’s Presiding Officer, Professor Joseph Fuwape, announced that Adeleke scored 254,698 votes while his APC counterpart, Gboyega Oyetola, got 254,345 votes.
But Fuwape said that the number of votes in places where election was cancelled prevented him from declaring Adeleke as the winner.
He explained that the total registered voters in the five polling units where elections were cancelled is 3,498 votes.
The affected local government were Orolu, Ife North, Ife South and Osogbo, the state capital.
