Protests, Condemnation Mount over Osun Supplementary Election

It is triumph of tyranny, Laments Atiku Democracy dead says Fayose ECA threatens boycott

Protests have continued to mount over the controversial governorship rerun election in Osun State where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returned Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner with an organisation, the Eastern Mandate Assembly threatening a boycott of 2019 elections.

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has described the declaration of Oyetola as the winner of the September 22, 2018 gubernatorial election by INEC as a travesty of justice.

Also reviewing the result of the polls, Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki who is the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Campaign Council on Osun State Governorship election described it as an embarrassment to the nation’s democracy.

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, lamented that the handling of the Osun election was a proof that democracy was dead in Nigeria.

A coalition of civil society organisations under the aegis of Eastern Consultative Assembly (ECA) and the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) yesterday also condemned the “brazen manipulation of the poll to subvert the will of the people.” The TMG further warned that the desperation of the political class, had grievous implication for the credibility and legitimacy of the entire Osun supplementary exercise.

Atiku, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the PDP said that what happened in Osun State was not democracy but a demonstration of tyranny.

He disclosed this in a statement he personally signed in Abuja, insisting that the victory of the candidate of the PDP Senator Ademola Adeleke, was firmly established last week on Saturday the 22nd of September, 2018.

According to him, “The result just declared today in Osun by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in favour of the All Progressives Congress and its candidate is a travesty of justice. That was not democracy. That was a demonstration of tyranny.

“This so-called victory of the APC is not a democratic victory. Observers, both foreign and domestic, reported the brazen intimidation of voters and outright suppression of voting in PDP strongholds with even PDP agents physically prevented from being at the polling units.”

The former vice president noted that the actions showed to the whole world that the unnecessary rerun, in polling units cancelled or voided by the INEC, was nothing more than a red herring, to distract attention and gain time, while the ruling party perfected strategies to pull a fast one on the electorate, as it has done.

He insisted that the international community must intervene to ensure that what happened in Osun must be investigated, reversed and prevented from spilling over to other gubernatorial, legislative and national elections in 2019.

He called on Nigerians to be on guard, adding APC had shown its leprous hand of a tyrant and must be alert in future elections, saying for as Thomas Paine said “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

According to Saraki, “Yesterday, we witnessed another display of the subversion of the will of the Osun people during the re-run gubernatorial elections in the state. The election was characterised by widespread voter intimidation, violence and harassment. Accredited observers were denied access to polling units and duly registered voters were prevented from participating in the electoral process by thugs and compromised security agents.

“Like I said a few days ago, this needless re-run election was only designed as an avenue for the ruling party to perpetrate electoral fraud. The nature of these elections is an embarrassment to our democracy and casts an alarming pall on the institutions responsible for protecting the will of the Nigerian people as stated through their votes. That was why for more than 10 hours the INEC could not collate and announce results in just seven polling units with just over 2000 votes.

“It is surprising that the election in which on Saturday, the two leading candidates were running neck to neck with the PDP candidate having an edge, four days later, as a result of manipulations and impossible conditions, the APC candidate is now being credited with all the votes and some paltry number of votes were being recorded for the PDP candidate.

“We should not make a mockery of democracy by conducting elections in the manner that the Osun polls were conducted. The Osun election is a clear indication of how the 2019 election will be conducted. It demonstrates that if we cannot conduct free, peaceful and fair elections in seven polling units spread across four local government areas of a state, then the conduct of the general elections in 774 local government areas across 36 states of the country is already endangered.