Outcome of Osun election shocks APC, Aregbesola

The people of Osun State, on Saturday, shocked the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Governor Rauf Aregbesola as majority of the voters in the state cast their lots with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the September 22 governorship poll, Senator Ademola Adeleke.

In a tension-soaked election, the under-rated Adeleke sprung surprises across the state and made nonsense of the incumbency factor. At the end of counting yesterday, Adeleke scored 254,698 votes to defeat Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola, the APC candidate who polled 254,345 votes. But, Prof. Joseph Fuwape, the Returning Officer for the Osun governorship election, declared the poll inconclusive. Fuwape, who is the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), declared the poll inconclusive because of cases of ballot boxes snatching that occurred in some polling units during the election.

Consequently, 3,498 voters across the five polling units in the state will, on Thursday, September 27, determine Adeleke and Oyetola’s fate. The returning officer mentioned the affected polling units to include Ife North, one polling unit; Ife south, two polling units; Orolu, three polling units and Osogbo, one polling unit. He said a total of 3,498 votes were cancelled in the seven affected polling units.

“Based on this fact, I cannot declare anyone the winner of the election,” he said. Fuwape, however, said that the rerun of the election in the affected polling units would take place on Thursday, September 27. Jolted by the outcome of the election, New Telegraph learnt that shortly after the declaration of the poll results, APC leaders went into a marathon meeting where stalwarts condemned the state governor and the party leadership for poor handling of party affairs, especially allowing their members to decamp to the Action Democratic party (ADP) without being pacified after the party’s primary election.

At the meeting reportedly held in Osogbo, the party leaders called for reconciliation with former and aggrieved members before the rerun in seven polling units on Thursday. The electorate, who had trooped out as early as possible to cast their votes on Saturday, ignored all the allegations levelled against the PDP candidate, Adeleke and his perceived inadequacies to express their hatred for the incumbent government.

The people of the state did not mind having a ‘Dancing governor’, but were ready to do away with APC. Few days before the election, the police had invited Adeleke and four others over allegation of impersonation during the 2017 Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE), conducted by the National Examination. Adeleke was also said to have failed his SSCE conducted in 1981 by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), securing ‘F’ in English Language while he was also absent in other papers. But in spite of all these, the people of Osun State turned out massively to express their anger against what they termed the autocratic tendencies of the APC and alleged mismanagement of the state’s resources.

The state’s workers, particularly those from Level 8 to Level 17, are unhappy with the governor for paying them modulated salaries for more than two years. Many communities are also angry with the governor, especially based on his educational policies, which they claimed disorganised the state’s school system.

There are also allegations of imposition by the governor and his party, while others insisted that the choice of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s relative, Oyetola, as the gubernatorial candidate of the party, is condemnable. They accused both the party and the state of reneging on the zoning agreement, which had purportedly earlier considered the Osun West Senatorial District to produce the governor after his tenure. Meanwhile, tension was heightened yesterday in Osun State, among supporters of the two leading political parties – PDP and APC – as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the gubernatorial election inconclusive. INEC’s decision was hinged on the extant law, which recommends rerun in situation where the figure of the total cancelled votes is higher than the margin between the leading candidate and the closest rival.

The atmosphere had been charged at the INEC headquarters in Osogbo, the state capital, particularly among the 48 party agents who sat in the collation hall and members of various parties, who had gathered in their hundreds in front of the INEC office, as the collation officers across the 30 local governments presented the results of their local government areas. In the middle of the announcement, the agent of the PDP, Mr. Dele Adeleke, had observed discrepancies in the result earlier declared for his party in Ayedaade Local Government Area, noting that 9,836 announced did not tally with the result that was signed by his agent in the local government.

Adeleke said the result in the party’s possession was 10,836. Cheered by other party members, including the State Chairman, Hon. Soji Adagunodo, Adeleke insisted the 1,000 votes allegedly deducted from the party’s votes in the local government should be returned. The development led to the recall of the results, but after careful study, the electoral umpire insisted that the result announced tallied with the one collated at the various polling units and signed by the agents of all the parties. Also, members of the PDP arrested and paraded an alleged staffer of INEC in the state, Salawu Kolawole, who was accused of destroying the election result of Ayedaade Local Government.

The party chairman, Adagunodo, said there were attempts to manipulate the results of the election in favour of APC. He said the results attributed to APC in five local government areas, including Olorunda, Osogbo, Ife East, Ilesa East and Boripe LGs, were inflated in favour of APC. Adagunodo noted that the attention of INEC has been called to the discrepancies, adding that the electoral body has accepted that there were errors in Olorunda LG. At this stage, members of the PDP loitering on the road in front of the INEC office began to sing protest songs, accusing INEC of attempting to rig the election in favour of the ruling APC. It took the intervention of the heavily armed security men stationed at the headquarters to disperse the crowd with the aid of teargas. After the announcement of the results in each of the local government areas by the collation officers, it took INEC more than two hours to resume the announcement of the results. The delay led to agitation among members of the leading opposition party and their supporters, with people gathering in twos and threes unsure of what to expect.

The chairman of PDP said his party will participate in the rerun election and win convincingly, but also accused INEC of what he termed last-minute attempts to rig in favour of the APC. But the APC agent at the collation centre, Hon. Rasak Adeosun, denied the allegations against his party, even as he also accused INEC of inconsistencies.

He said it was unfortunate that the professors who served as collation officers could not do proper arithmetic. He said: “As you can see, all the places where the votes were cancelled are strongholds of our party. The opposition parties had attempted to rig at the units by hijacking ballot boxes. “We are sure of victory and we will try as much as possible to ensure that APC is victorious.”