From an unexpected quarter, former Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, has arisen explanations why Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, should be declared winner of last Saturday’s Osun election.
Iwu’s comments, published by Thisday, comes as the APC Campaign Council for the Governorship Election has berated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for “excessive grandstanding” over last Saturday’s election.
But a presidential aspirant of the opposition party and former Senate President, David Mark, believes the way out is to declare his party’s candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, winner.
Iwu, the self-acclaimed inventor of inconclusive elections outcomes, said: “Actually, during the review of INEC’s Elections’ Manual, my committee and I as the Chair, invented the inconclusive elections outcomes, particularly where elections did not hold for one reason or the other.
“However, we the initiators of the inconclusive elections realised that our proposal was against the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as Amended), particularly the presidential and the governorship elections and rerun.
“Our proposals could be applied only in Senatorial, Federal House of Representatives, and State Assembly elections and rerun, for which the Constitution did not specify how these rerun should be made.
“In this, what is required by the constitution is that the ‘first past the post’ and/or that the candidate must have the polled majority of the votes cast.
“Secondly, that the candidate in addition to it, must obtain 25 per cent of the total votes cast in two-third of the LGAs of the state in question or of the states incase of presidential election.
“The electoral act or INEC guide lines cannot supersede the constitutional provisions for that purpose.
“As the Constitution has clearly spelt out the manner and how a rerun should be made in the cases of governorship or presidential election rerun. Now that the abuse of this tool is becoming obvious, the beneficiaries of this anomaly have refused to listen or adjust accordingly.”
Said Mark: “INEC should demonstrate its independent. This twist is an affront to the good people of Osun State and Nigerians whose wishes are being manipulated.
“The All Progressives Congress (APC) must accept the result of the Osun governorship election. This antics of changing the rules of the game when it does not favour them is a dangerous phenomenon and a serious threat to democracy.
“Our party, the PDP has been law abiding. We have always complied even in extreme and glaring cases of infractions against us. I expect the APC to lead by example and accept the verdict of the Osun election as expressed by majority of Osun people”.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday, the Chairman of the APC’s Council’s Media Committee, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, decried the PDP’s descent into hysteria after INEC announced that the election was inconclusive, saying this reinforced the Council’s earlier statement that the opposition party was in the panic mode prior to the election, and that it had no confidence in the institutions saddled with organizing the polls.
The Council said rather than resort to threats, the PDP could either go to court or decide not to participate in the supplementary election of Sept. 27th.
What the PDP cannot and must not do, the Council said, is to engage in its trade-mark brigandage or to employ tactics that can short-circuit the democratic process.
”In its time, there would have been no room for a supplementary election in Osun because the PDP would have used state institutions to hijack the election proper, as it did in Ekiti in 2014. But in its deafening hysteria, the PDP pretends not to understand the real meaning of the outcome of the Osun election: That the ruling APC did nothing to prevent the state institutions that organized the election from carrying out their duties, in the spirit of true democracy.
”Local and foreign observers have hailed INEC and the security agencies for a well-organized election. We join them in this commendation. Our confidence in the ability of the relevant state institutions involved in the Osun election remains unshaken. So also is our belief that every disagreement resulting from the election must be resolved through the democratic process, rather than a resort to threats of fire and brimstone,” the Council said.
It described as selective amnesia the jaundiced analysis by compromised, pay-as-you-go analysts, party hacks and renowned professional riggers masquerading as democrats who pretend not to remember that the APC was leading the PDP massively (by over 40,000 votes) in the 2015 Kogi governorship election when INEC declared the election inconclusive.
”Rather then resort to threats, like the PDP is doing now, the APC simply submitted to the democratic process and the supplementary election was peacefully conducted in 91 polling units across 18 of the 21 local governments in the state. Where were these emergency, ready-for-hire analysts then?” the Council queried.
It commended the good people of Osun State for deepening the nation’s democracy by eschewing violence and exercising their franchise in orderly manner all through the election process last Saturday, and urged voters in the areas to be covered by the supplementary electionto also ensure a peaceful process on Thursday.