The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has demanded the immediate resignation of the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, following his controlling role in the September 22, 2018, Osun State Governorship election.
The party described the election as full of fraudulent manipulations.
In the same vein, the PDP also called for the resignation of Mrs. Amina Zakari, the INEC national commissioner, supervising electoral operations, who is also in charge of Information Communication Technology (ICT) Department, where election results were allegedly altered to favour the APC.
In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the party said with INEC’s alleged fraudulent conduct in the Osun governorship election, and approval that a concluded election be declared inconclusive, the PDP and all well-meaning Nigerians no longer had confidence in Yakubu.
It described as completely inexcusable that Prof. Yakubu presided over an atrocious and compromised electoral umpire that allegedly manipulated electoral processes, doctored figures, allocated fictitious votes and subverted the will of the people in an election.
The PDP said it had additional documentary evidence of how INEC, through its Operations and ICT Department, allegedly doctored results from polling centres, directly shortchanged the PDP with no fewer than 4,387 votes by slashing votes cast for the PDP at the polling centres while allocating fictitious figures to the APC.
The PDP said it had facts on how INEC slashed over 1000 votes freely cast by the people for its candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, in Ayedaade Local Government Area, in order to reduce his votes from the legitimate 10,836 votes cast at the polling centers to 9,836 votes so as to give APC the lead with a 1000 vote margin in the local government.
Also, the PDP said it had evidence of how INEC, while collating results, allegedly directly allocated over 1,367 fictitious votes to the APC in Olorunda Local Government Area, to fraudulently shore up the APC votes to duplicitous 16,254 votes.
That, it claimed, was in addition to evidence of how INEC awarded over 2,000 fictitious votes in favour of the APC in Oshogbo to push APC’s vote to 23,379 against the actual 21,479 votes scored by the defeated party.
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“Such writing of results by INEC in collusion with the APC occurred in many other areas leading to INEC’s ill-fated directives to its junior officials, including the one apprehended in Ayedaade, to destroy results already displayed at polling and collation centres.
“It was after INEC and the APC realized that despite their manipulation of figures, our candidate still scored the highest number of votes, making him the clear winner of the election, that they decided to fraudulently apply unconstitutional grounds to declare the election inconclusive.
“From the facts available to us, INEC robbed our party of over 4,387 votes. Our actual winning margin stands at 4,740 votes against the 353 votes declared by INEC,” the party said.
It added that while the PDP, in rejecting INEC’s declaration, was resolute in the decision to seek legal redress and take the mandate, freely given to its candidate by the people of Osun State, the party had also discovered schemes perfected by INEC to rig its planned supplementary election in favour of the APC.
The PDP said it was already aware that INEC had increased the original number of voters in the affected polling centres by over 850 so as to expand its latitude to manipulate results with uncollected Permanent Voter Card (PVCs); a development, which it said further showed INEC’s determination to rig the election for APC.
The statement reads further: “The PDP holds that the shenanigan that has characterized the Osun governorship election is a testing measure by the APC in collusion with INEC to rig the 2019 general elections, particularly the Presidential election, which they plan to plunge into similar controversy immediately it becomes obvious that APC is losing.
“Our fear is that such will push our nation into an irretrievable state of anarchy and spell doom to our democracy.
“While Prof. Mahmood Yakubu can no longer be trusted to conduct the 2019 general elections, it is public knowledge that Mrs. Amina Zakari, the INEC National Commissioner, Supervising Electoral Operations is a direct blood relation of Mr. President and as such, we believe that she cannot be an impartial arbiter in an election involving her uncle.
“The PDP therefore calls on all patriotic Nigerians to join in the demand for the resignation of Prof. Yakubu and Mrs. Zakari so as to avert this dangerous path, where INEC is leading our nation.
“As a law abiding and people-oriented political party, all that the PDP is demanding for is the return of our candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, as the duly returned candidate at the September 22, 2018 Osun Governorship Election.
“We call on INEC to guarantee free, fair and credible election at all levels of engagement, as we will not allow unpatriotic individuals to destroy our nation with their inordinate and selfish aspirations.”
