[News] Osun Decides 2018: PDP Heads To Court Over INEC’s Inconclusive Declaration Of Osun Poll

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is set to head to court to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission’s inconclusive declaration of the September 22, 2018 Osun governorship election.

The party insisted that the polls had been concluded and results announced in all polling and the collation centres across the state, thus bringing the exercise to its lawful conclusion thus, denying the electoral umpire powers to declare same inconclusive.

In a statement issued by the party’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP accused INEC of working in sync with the ruling party to rob it of its victory on Saturday.

The party also called for the immediate arrest and prosecution of the Osun State Governorship Election Returning Officer, Professor Joseph Fuwape, for allegedly succumbing to the pressure of the APC in declaring the election as inconclusive.

“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 winner, even when the declared results have thrown up a winner.

“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,” the statement read in part.