The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has declared its intention to challenge the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) to declare the Osun State governorship election inconclusive.
The party said its candidate, Ademola Adeleke, obviously won the election which was held on Saturday, and deserved to be declared the governor.
According to a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP said the returning officer in the election, Mr. Joseph Fuwape, should be arrested and prosecuted having allegedly violated the law.
It said once results had been announced, INEC was supposed to announce a winner.
PDP said contrary to the claim by INEC, the election came to its “lawful conclusion” and Adeleke deserved to be declared the governor.
The statement reads in part: “Our electoral law is clear that once an election result is declared, INEC is bound to return a winner. INEC, in trying to play the card of the defeated All Progressives Congress (APC), contravened the law by refusing to announce a return, even when the declared results have thrown up a winner.
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“Section 69 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) states that inter-alia “in an election to the office of the President or governor whether or not contested and in any contested election to any other elective office, the result shall be ascertained by counting the votes cast for each candidate and subject to the provisions of sections 133, 134 and 179 of the constitution, the candidate that receives the highest number of votes shall be declared elected by the appropriate Returning Officer.
“Concurrently, Section 179 (2), (a) (b) of the constitution directly prescribes that “a candidate for an election to the office of Governor of a State shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being two or more candidates – (a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election; and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the State.
“INEC’s action in declaring a concluded election as inconclusive is therefore an annulment, totally duplicitous, constitutionally illegal, ultra-vires and as such null and void.”