The Segun Oni Campaign Organisation(SOCO) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) and the All Progressive Congress (APC) of working secretly together to cover up the traces of the frauds perpetrated to rig the Ekiti June 18 governorship election in favour of the APC candidate, Mr Biodun Oyebanji before the Election Petition Tribunal sitting actually begins.
Mr Jackson Adebayo, the campaign organisation’s Director of Media and Publicity who stated this in a press statement made available to the journalists in Ado Ekiti on Monday, said that Mr Biodun Oyebanji the APC governorship candidate who was awarded the questionable winning votes and other respondents in the petition filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) governorship candidate, Asiwaju Segun Oni, have gotten the permission of INEC to inspect the election materials in the custody of INEC.
Adebayo asked, “For God’s sake, what inspection and what election materials do a candidate who won an election and has been issued a certificate of returns wants an inspection for? To increase his winning votes or what?
The conclusion by SOCO is that the APC has a dubious tendency considering the party’s undemocratic behaviour by hiding to evade the Tribunal’s service until it later realised the consequences of its action.
“It is very certain that the INEC has succumbed to the pressure of APC to find its way to the election materials in the custody of INEC, to further manipulate the last election materials to suit their election whims and caprices by either illegally or through the back-end, to void some votes, destroy votes, casting new votes, and changing a total number of votes, since losing at the tribunal is staring at APC, It is crystal clear, that the APC is about perpetrating “Election after Election”, Adebayo submitted.
Adebayo stated further that when the SDP got the Tribunal’s permission to inspect the materials, the INEC refused to cooperate, explaining further, ” the last time the SDP inspection team arrived at the INEC office for the inspection that was fixed by INEC, sadly, SDP could not undertake the inspection because the INEC staff that was to guide the team was scheduled for another assignment and as such, the SDP was advised to wait to conduct its inspection with APC that was not even interested in the Tribunal from the onset. How come APC is suddenly eager to inspect election materials?, Adebayo asked.
According to Adebayo, the APC is alleged to be perpetrating this reprehensible act in collaboration with PDP, because they are both sourcing inspection experts together. “This dubious partnership was part of the pre-election working agreements between the key figures of APC and PDP in Ekiti State who had conspiratorial vicious hatred for Segun Oni with the fear that by working together they will continue to have a strong grip on the affairs of Ekiti State despite their disappointing performances in many years.”
The Ekiti people should not allow “election after election”, which the APC is praying for badly because Segun Oni surprised the APC and PDP for coming second in the election.