The Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Ondo State, has called for the cancellation of the Saturday’s Local Government elections in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ondo State Independent Electoral Commission (ODIEC) had conducted elections into the chairmanship and councillorship seats in all the 18 local government areas of the state.
ODIEC had on Sunday announced that the All Progressives Congress (APC) won all the chairmanship and councillorship positions, defeating other 12 political parties that participated in the elections.
The state Chairman of SDP, Mr Ebenezer Akinbuli, at a news conference on Monday in Akure, described the conduct of the elections as “a show of shame, concocted by the ruling APC-led government under Gov. Lucky Aiyedatiwa.”
Akinbuli said the council polls were marred with widespread irregularities, harassment and intimidation by the APC party agents.
“We want to condemn the ‘selection’ that took place in Ondo State on Saturday.
“There was no election in the state as far as we are concerned because what happened was a pure show of shame, and that is why we are calling for the immediate cancellation of the polls.
“Also, we are calling for the removal or honourable resignation of the State Chairman of ODIEC, Mr Joseph Aremo.
“We’ve engaged him and he assured us, as a political party, that he was going to be a fair umpire, but it’s unfortunate that he didn’t do as promised.
“We call for the cancellation of the polls because all the polling units across the 18 local governments were floored with all manner of irregularities and Electoral Officers were not given the sheets to write the results of the elections,” he said.
Akinbuli noted that there was no adherence to the rules guiding the elections by ODIEC.
“The just concluded local government election was a total fraud, the councillorship and chairmanship candidates were mandated to pay tax heavily to the account of the state government for the election, not knowing that they will use the money to defraud us.
“We are going to file a petition personally against the ODIEC Chairman, Mr Joseph Aremo, for his involvement in this election and we are also going to challenge the outcome of the election,” he said. (NAN)
