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Deputy Governor of Ekiti State and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in last Saturday’s governorship election in the state, Professor Kolapo Olubunmi Olusola, has rejected the result of the election and declared that he would pursue and reclaim his mandate.
Professor Olusola addressed newsmen in Ado Ekiti, on Sunday and pointedly said: “I reject the INEC results of the July 14, 2018 governorship election.”
Olusola, who polled 178,121 votes came second behind the candidate of the All Progressives Congress’s Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who scored a total of 197,459 to emerge the winner in the election.
The PDP candidate claimed that the governorship election was “hijacked by political desperadoes leveraging on “Federal might” to pervert the electoral process, subvert the will of Ekiti people, and viciously steaL THE mandate willingly and freely given to me on a massive scale by our people.”
Olusola also claimed that “PDP and I won the election overwhelmingly, receiving more than 70 per cent of lawful votes cast and winning in almost all of the State’s 16 local government areas.
“I therefore reject the falsified results being bandied by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which purportedly gave the election to the All Progressives Congress and its Candidate, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi.”
According to Olusola, the results as declared by INEC were “the most audacious electoral robbery of our recent history,” saying “it shall not stand. By the grace of Almighty God and your support, I will pursue and regain my mandate.”
On how he felt the election was allegedly manipulated against his party and himself, Olusola said “the APC leveraged on its well-advertised but patently obnoxious and anti-democratic “Federal might” to intimidate, harass, victimize, oppress, and brutalize PDP leaders, members, and the voting public all over Ekiti.
“This brutal and barbaric process, which started well before the election, did not spare Governor Ayo Fayose and me; as the whole world had seen and had condemned. It is quite unfortunate that the harassment has continued even after the election.
“On Saturday, July 14th, the security agencies and INEC upped the ante, threw all caution to the wind, went back on their promises to be impartial and to conduct credible elections; they sided with APC and Fayemi to the chagrin of our party, myself, and the good people of Ekiti State.
“Despite the alarm we had earlier raised, the security agencies not only supported but also supervised the indiscriminate arrest of our party leaders and agents; the harassment and brutalization of voters on a massive scale, especially in Ado-Ekiti, Ikere and the suburbs.
“Giving cover, tacit as well as active support to thugs imported into Ekiti by APC to snatch ballot boxes, create confusion, cause mayhem, and drive away voters in PDP strongholds; giving cover to APC agents as they financially and openly induced voters and bought votes at polling stations; and driving away our polling agents from collation centres and illegal seizure of documents and materials in their possession, among many other infractions.”
INEC on its own part reneged on its promise to have results counted, declared, and pasted on the wall of each polling station. There was nowhere INEC transmitted results from the polling centres as earlier promised. Ballot boxes were illegally moved to INEC offices while our agents were disallowed from following the process.”
Olusola said the Ekiti election was “without doubt, the APC template for the 2019 general election, where they have mapped out Rivers and Akwa Ibom as states they must capture at all costs, like they are now trying to do Ekiti.”
While thanking the international community for what he said they had done so far, he also thanked the people of the state for standing by him and his party.