The supplementary election into the Senate slated for Saturday, the 9th day of March 2019, in the southern Senatorial district of Ondo State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is a mere academic exercise.
It is stating the obvious that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)emerged victorious in the Ondo South Senatorial Election held on Saturday, the 23rd day of February 2019 wherein our candidate, Otunba Nicholas Tofowomo scored 79,029 votes; while his closest rival, Senator Yele Omogunwa of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 51,993 votes, leading to a wide margin of 27,036 votes ahead of the APC candidate.
It is crystal clear that INEC ought not to have had any excuse under the sun to declare the election inconclusive.
The delayed announcement of the winner and the subsequent announcement for a supplementary election by INEC is a provocative attempt to cause crisis where it ought not to be.
We thank God Almighty that the PDP in Ondo State has vowed not to surrender to any form of provocation capable of truncating the fragile peace in the southern part of Ondo-State.
We must state emphatically that INEC has not done well at all for declaring an election that produced a clear winner inconclusive.
It is on record that the same institution ( INEC ) declared emergent winners in the three House of Representatives elections conducted in the same Senatorial district; but chose to do abracadabra with respect to the Senatorial election which was held simultaneously with the House of Representatives elections.
Why would INEC approbate and reprobate in the enforcement of its own guidelines for elections as regards the grounds for declaration of inconclusive elections in Ondo South?
In Abia-State where Orji Uzor Kalu of the APC was declared winner of the Senatorial election in his district with a voting margin of less than 10, 000 votes, while the cancelled votes in the same areas or where election did not hold had 30,000 number of registered voters. Yet, INEC declared Kalu of the APC winner of the election because he is a member of the ruling APC.
It was a different story in Ondo South where Nicholas Tofowomo of the PDP has 27,036 votes margin and yet, he was not declared by INEC on the claim that 28, 047 registered voters did not participate in the election as a result of crisis in about 52 units.
The difference is just a thousand vote compared to over 30,000 votes in Abia State where Kalu was declared winner by INEC.
The general public and international community must know that out of the so-called 28,000 affected voters in these disputed areas, the electorates who collected their permanent voter cards (PVC) based on the record available to us is less than 20,000 registered voters .
The implication is that even if all the registered voters with PVC in the affected 52 units of 28,000 registered voters(as claimed by INEC)decide to vote for the APC Candidate ( which is not possible), the PDP Candidate with 27,000 leading votes margins is still the winner.
The questions to INEC are:
— why waste the resources of the government on an exercise which the outcome is very obvious and predictable?
— why waste the resources, time and energy of the electorates who had already expressed their wishes going by the declared results by INEC last week Saturday?
— why is INEC subjecting the electorates to undue risk and tension over nothing?
Our message to INEC is that the commission must disembark from any act capable of rubbishing and exposing their ineptitude which ridicules Nigeria in the comity of nation.
We also by this message alert Nigerians and international community that INEC and the ruling APC government especially in Ondo state be held liable for plunging the people of Ondo-State into unnecessary and unjustifiable complications.
Signed:
Banji Okunomo,
State Publicity Secretary of PDP,
Ondo-State.
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