By Dipo Olowookere
Outcome of Saturday’s governorship election in Ondo State has been rejected by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Spokesperson of the PDP, Mr Dayo Adeyeye, alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) aided the party that emerge winner in the exercise, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to rig the poll.
In a statement issued on Monday, Mr Adeyeye said it was a “common knowledge that the APC agents openly bought votes of the electorates in the full glare of security operatives who did nothing to prevent such dastardly violation of the Electoral Law.”
According to him, “It is not surprising that the electorates 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 made all Nigerians virtually beggars in their own country.”
The PDP, in the statement, further said, “The actions of INEC in collaboration with the APC-led administration left us no time to campaign and sell our candidate and party manifesto to the electorates in Ondo State.
“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 of rigging election 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,” he said.
The PDP also said, “We have instructed our candidate and the Ondo State chapter of our party to proceed to the Tribunal to challenge the outcome of the election.
“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.”
On Sunday, the Chief Returning Officer of INEC, Mr Abdul-Ganiyu Ambali, declared candidate of the APC, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, as winner of the election.
He said Mr Akeredolu polled 244,842, to beat his closest rival, Mr Eyitayo Jegede of the PDP, who got 150,380 votes.
