PDP rejects Ondo guber result, set for tribunal

The national leader­ship of the Peoples’ Democratic Par­ty (PDP) has rejected the result of last Saturday’s Ondo State governorship election won by Chief Roti­mi Akeredolu (SAN) of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Although Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko has congratulated Akeredo­lu over his victory, the PDP spokesman, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, said that the elec­tion was manipulated in fa­vour of the APC candidate.
In a statement on Mon­day, the PDP said that “the election and all actions lead­ing to it fall short of laid down principles on the con­duct of elections in Nigeria.”
Adeyeye said that the PDP had instructed its can­didate, Eyitayo Jegede (SAN) and the Ondo State chapter of the party to proceed to the tribunal to challenge the outcome of the election.

He described the out­come of the election as de­clared by the Independent National Electoral Commis­sion (INEC) Chief Returning Officer, Prof. Abdul-Ganiyu Ambali, as a charade, adding that it was not a true reflec­tion of the will of the people of the state.
According to the PDP: “INEC has however gradu­ated from inconclusive elec­tions as seen in Kogi, Bayelsa, Osun, FCT, Imo, Nasarawa and some other previous bye-elections in the country to ‘advanced election rig­ging’, as in the case of Edo and Ondo states gubernato­rial elections.
“It is common knowledge that the APC agents openly bought votes of the elector­ate in the full glare of security operatives who did nothing to prevent such dastardly vi­olation of the electoral law. It is not surprising that the elec­torate in Ondo State became so vulnerable to the corrup­tive influence of the APC be­cause of the hash economic situation in the country in­flicted on Nigerians by the APC administration which has indeed turned all Nige­rians to virtually beggars in their own country.”
Adeyeye said that the PDP had persistently called for the postponement of the election for at least two weeks to enable it campaign and prepare properly for it as a result of the setback orches­trated by the court order but it was rejected.
The party regretted that the actions of INEC, in col­laboration with the APC-led administration, did not al­low it enough time to cam­paign and sell its candidate and manifesto to the people, despite the fact that 20 other political parties supported its call for the postponement of the election.
Accusing INEC of acting the script of the APC, the PDP said: “It was a carefully planned and well-orchestrat­ed strategy to rig the election well in advance by preventing the PDP from planning and campaigning for the election. The APC has hereby intro­duced a new formula for rig­ging elections in Nigeria.
“In view of the fact that the election was blatantly ma­nipulated from the beginning to the end to favour the APC, we vehemently reject the re­sults of the November 26, 2016 gubernatorial election in Ondo State.
“We call on the judiciary to redeem Nigeria’s image on this matter as we request for the total cancellation of the election in Ondo State,” Adeyeye said.
The party, however, con­gratulated Jegede and the state chapter for the impres­sive performance at the poll.
Meanwhile, the Senator Ali Modu Sheriff faction of the PDP has said that the par­ty lost the election because of impunity and lack of respect for the party’s constitution.
At a press conference in Abuja, Sheriff’s deputy, Cairo Ojougboh, traced the crisis to PDP governors’ highhanded­ness in imposing candidates on the party.
According to him, the genesis of impunity in the PDP first manifested in the 2011 general elections when the then Congress for Pro­gressive Change (CPC) de­feated the PDP in Nasarawa State even though the party had a sitting governor.
He said: “This was the first warning against impu­nity. It was ignored. Then in 2015 we had governors in Benue, Kogi, Niger, Jiga­wa, Plateau, Kaduna, Katsi­na, Kebbi, Bauchi and Ad­amawa. We lost in all these states for a common reason-the governors were not un­popular but they imposed their surrogates and the peo­ple voted them out. We paid for impunity.
“An analysis of the 2015 general elections shows that the entire 10 states above are in the North. The South-South would not have sur­vived if President (Goodluck) Jonathan did not hail from the region. Of course, the fig­ures that emanated from the South East were abysmal”.