There Was No Council Election In Ekiti, Says APC

THOUGH, the Ekiti State Council poll has come and gone, there is no end in sight to the intrigues that have followed.

Many had thought the pre-election uproar, that nearly jeopardised the election would have been rested, as soon as the High Court gave its verdict on Monday, December 14, which gave the Ekiti State Independent Electoral Commission (EKSIEC), the green light to carry on with the election. But opposition parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC), are up in arms describing the electioneering process as a fluke.

Prior to the December 19 poll, there were two suits instituted against the conduct of the election by APC and a faction of the PDP.

APC instituted two separate motions challenging the improper constitution of EKSIEC, which it claimed the chairman, Justice Kayode Bamisile (rtd) and others are card-carrying members of the PDP.

The other suit by Tunde Olatunde-led faction of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), sought to stop the nomination of fresh candidates for the party and to affirm winners of the party primaries conducted in November 2011 as valid candidates for the election. It prayed the court to declare the nomination of another set of candidates by the Idowu Faleye-led faction, which is loyal to the Governor, unconstitutional, null and void.

The court ruled in favour of EKSIEC to conduct the poll, with the PDP making a clean sweep of all the seats available.

Though the electoral umpire and the ruling party claimed five political parties participated, APC claimed other parties boycotted the poll, hence the election cannot stand.

The Publicity Secretary of APC, Taiwo Olatunbosun, in a statement issued to the media described the election process as a mockery of democracy. “An election with a single party participating, while also raising PDP members to pose as candidates of obscure parties would never pass the test of representative poll.”

Chairman of the party, Jide Awe, who floored the election told The Guardian that his party has instituted another suit to appeal the judgment.

“The so-called election was no election. We cannot refer to what happened on Saturday, December 19 as election. It wasn’t an election because no other party, except the PDP took part and they still rigged it among themselves.

“The claims that other parties took part is not true, if other parties participated, there’ll be party agents, no other party participated in the election and we have appealed the judgment,” said Awe.