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Ekiti Rerun: Iwu
Battles Ayoka Adebayo |
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Seun Oloketuyi's Notes
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May 2nd, 2009 This coming week
promises to be a battle royale between
Nigeria’s INEC Chairman, Prof. Murice
Iwu and the Ekiti INEC Resident
Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Ayoka
Adebayo. The ingredients for that
impending battle are already being
deployed.
Our sources told us of how the
controversial Ido/Osi rigged results
from 8 wards became a subject of intense
disagreement between Iwu and Mrs.
Adebayo, during the Meeting of the
Chairman with all the 36 RECs last
Thursday in Abuja. Mrs. Adebayo
reportedly rebuffed pressures by Iwu to
accomodate the 15,000 votes from 8 wards
allegedly collated at the police
station, because it was contrary to the
provision of the Electoral Act which
stipulate that votes must be collated at
INEC designated centres and dully signed
by party agents as witnesses.
Another issue in contention is the
tentative date for the ‘postponed’
election in the two wards of Oye. While
Adebayo is tentatively considering
Saturday May 9 for the ’supplementary’
election to give adequate logistic and
security preparations a chance, Iwu
preferred a hastily conducted election
that would merely rubber-stamp the
‘home-work permutations’ already put in
place by Senator Ayo Arise and his 36
‘bodyguards’ before they were rescued
from irate voters who caught them in the
act, and were despatched to Abuja on
Saturday 25 April, 2009.
As if to underscore his plans to accept
the 15,000 fake results from 8
violent-ridden wards of Ido/Osi, Iwu,
through INEC’s acting Director of Public
Affairs, Mr. Emmanuel Umenger declared
in a desperate statement yesterday
(Public Holiday, he could not wait till
Monday) that “the result of the election
of April 25, 2009 in the rest of the 61
wards and nine local government areas of
the state as was announced by the
relevant Returning Officers in the wards
and the local government remain valid as
stipulated also in Section 69 of the
Electoral Act 2006”
That is to say, whether Ekiti voters
like it or not, the 15,000
police-collated votes from 8 wards of
Ido/Osi would be cumulated with the
final results of Ekiti rerun!
But in a swift reaction to this
development, the Action Congress
National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, said: “…the people of Ekiti
have sworn to protect their mandate and
democracy. They are ready to sacrifice
everything to protect their mandate.
“So, let them (INEC and PDP) not attempt
any fraud, for they would set the state
and this country on fire.”
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