Knowing how Nigeria’s politics works, it would be infantile for any discerning mind not to be expecting that President Muhammadu Buhari and his yes men would take advantage of everything within their powers, even if illegal or immoral to rough-handle and shove Governor Ayo Fayose and his now disoriented PDP out of political power in Ekiti State.
As many of us had rightly predicted, President Buhari a patient and vengeful Fulani man, will in due season pull-out his spear to give Fayose, who was for many years the most vocal or even the lone opposition figure to Buhari and his thoroughly harassed APC.
The question now on the lips of every supporter of the opposition is, what will be the part two of this do-me-I-do-you drama playing out in Ekiti, especially since the candidate of the PDP has released a statement dismissing the election as rigged in favour of APC.
In a scathing press statement titled: I REJECT THE INEC RESULTS OF THE JULY 14, 2018 EKITI GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION Prof. Kolapo Olubunmi Olusola Eleka Deputy Governor of Ekiti State and PDP Candidate for the disputed election said, “You are all aware of the unfortunate and dangerous events of the past 24 hours, in which our 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.
His party PDP, he claimed, won the election overwhelmingly, receiving more than 70% 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, which purportedly gave the election to the All Progressives Congress and its Candidate; Dr. John Kayode Fayemi.
“This is the most audacious electoral robbery of our recent history. It shall not stand. By the grace of Almighty God and your support, I will pursue and regain my mandate.
“To rig this election, 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 Gov. 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. “
The aggrieved PDP candidate alleged that 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; and that they sided with APC and Fayemi to the chagrin of APC, himself, and the good people of Ekiti State.
Prof. Eleka alleged further that despite the alarm PDP had earlier raised, the security agencies not only supported but also supervised the harassment, brutalization and indiscriminate arrest of PDP party leaders and agents.
He said the partial security agents gave cover to APC agents as they financially and openly induced voters and bought votes at polling stations; and that they also drove away APC polling agents from collation centres and illegally seized 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.
Eleka did not spare INEC whom he accused of allowing late voting by APC in hideouts, when according to him, it became obvious the figures still would not add up after all the infractions mentioned above.
“Still, when all of these shenanigans still failed to give them the figures they needed, they stopped the announcement of results ward-by-ward, caused a deliberate power outage at the collation centre, with no alternative source of power provided for a long time, and then wrote results in favour of APC and its candidate.
Adopting a pacifist posture he counseled that “those bent on setting this country on fire for selfish reasons must be restrained and turned back by the international community, mindful of the recent experience of Rwanda, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, to mention but a few. “
Given the fact that the winner has already been announced and waiting to be inaugurated, the only option open for Eleka may be to head to court to test the electoral laws again like many before him has done.
And the drama goes on to part two like the Nigerian movies are used to playing out.
