The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has demanded the immediate arrest and prosecution of the Osun State gubernatorial Election Returning Officer, Professor Joseph Fuwape for declaring the last Saturday governorship election inconclusive.
The party also asked the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu to immediately summon the courage to do the needful by declaring its candidate in the election, Senator Ademola Adeleke, as winner.
In a statement today, Monday by the National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP stressed that the September 22 polls had already been concluded and results announced in all polling units and collation centres.
According to the party, the country’s Electoral Law stated that once an election result was declared, INEC was bound to return 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,” Ologbondiyan stated.
The party emphasized that INEC’s action in declaring a concluded election as inconclusive was “an annulment, totally duplicitous, constitutionally illegal, ultra-vires and as such null and void”.
The party said that the people of the state had chosen the PDP and its candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke and insisted that the said election was conclusive.
“Nevertheless, we insist that the September 22, 2018 election, under our laws, is conclusive and our candidate must be declared winner.”
