Dust Yet to Settle Over Ondo National Assembly Poll - The last may not have been heard about the April 9 National Assembly election in Ondo State as party candidates who feel shortchanged over the handling of the processes of election head to the courthouse, calling for the cancellation of the results obtained in some polling stations in the state. The aggrieved parties argue that the results which INEC returning officers in the state declared were not a true reflection of what happened during the parliamentary election in the state. They also allege that the electoral umpires, colluding with security agencies, worked against other political parties in the state to favour the Labour Party. No doubt, their arguments could be described as high-handed considering the fact that Jega's INEC had, several months before the April polls, pledged to referee the party elections without prejudice to anyone including, of course, the man who pays their wages.

However, four weeks after the legislative poll, the call for results cancellation in the Sunshine state has become most loud and strident, thus, causing contagious motions to the nation's courts. Prominent among those crying foul about the National Assembly election in that state is the Ilaje Renaissance Group (IRG). Others include, Friends of the Armed Forces Widows (FAFW), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), all of which say that results of the National Assembly poll in the state were prejudicial and lacking in merit.

For example, leading the aggrieved army of election observer groups who seek legal redress in courts is the IRG Chairman, Mr Ajinde Oluwamoyo. The IRG boss laments the sweeping victory of the Labour Party candidates, arguing that the results were manipulated to the detriment of other candidates, especially in Ondo South Senatorial Zone.

He maintained that as an observer of the parliamentary poll in Ondo State he had first-hand information of what happened at the polling stations. From his observation he said he was convinced that the poll results in some areas of the state were a sham and as such did not reflect the wishes of the people of the areas.

According to him, "The returning officer for Ilaje/Ese-Odo Federal Constituency was purely and unreservedly biased in his job. You see, I can tell you unequivocally that the votes cast in Ilaje Local Government Area were not counted at the collation centres in the area but were taken to Akure where officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, colluding with irate soldiers, aided massive thumb-printing of ballot papers to give the Labour party candidate undue advantage over his opponents in the area.

"As such, the National Assembly results in Ondo State were not a true reflection of what happened in the state during the election. For example, in Igbokoda, Ilaje Local Government Area a lot of malpractices took place there where officials of the Labour Party in complete connivance with soldiers, offered N1000 to every voter; they would come and stand on the neck of every person voting and after voting they would shake hands and something would exchange hands".

The IRG boss further alleged that soldiers assigned to provide security at polling units behaved like characters in a Hollywood Western and, terrorized everyone who was not a Labour Party supporter.

The question is what does the Electoral Act of 2010 say about results of any election? Does it support bossy-boot attitudes of electoral officials in the collation of results? Of course, it states, in parts, that election results should be made open right from the wards where elections took place.

It might not be out of place to state here that Oluwamoyo's statements could be quintessentially bizarre disclosures, of course. To this end, Segun Omokhu, a public affairs analyst in the nation's capital asked rhetorically, "If the IRG's boss's accusations are anything to go by, then should the electorate be oppressed by people assigned to help them? On the other hand, why are the just-concluded general elections in the country generally adjudged open, free, fair and credibly transparent if there were such brazen attempts by the umpires to thwart the verdicts of the masses?"

Whatever the answers, though, it would be recalled that candidates of the Labour Party clinched all the federal legislators' seats in Ondo State leaving none at all to fellow competitors.

Omokhu said, "Of course, the parliamentary results in Ondo State are a sharp departure from what obtained in other Southwest states where competitions for the federal legislature were keen and gallantry. But in Ondo State we have been made to understand that candidates of other political parties were simply not popular with the people or that they were, altogether, unprepared for the election. That is all."

Nevertheless, ACN's House of Representatives candidate for the Ilaje/Ese-Odo Federal Constituency seat, Apostle Ajaye Rawa and his PDP counterpart, Agboola Ajayi have both approached the election petition tribunal in Ondo State calling for a reassessment of the electoral process that took place in the area during the last election, describing same as 'bias and a breach of the established electoral regulations in the country'.

In a suit ACN's Apostle Rawa argues that, "The election where Labour Party candidate, Hon Prince Raphael Nomiye was declared winner in Akure instead of Ilaje Constituency Headquarters is a clear case of electoral malpractice fraught with high-level irregularities that are big enough to orchestrate the cancellation of the whole process as fraudulent".

In the petition which he filed last week at the tribunal venue in Akure, Rawa declared that Nomiye who was declared winner was unduly favoured through the instrumentalities of election rigging and results alteration and, of course, ballot boxes snatching at gunpoint in some areas at the Ilaje/Ese-Odo federal constituency.

On the other hand, PDP's Agboola Ajayi argues that the LP candidate did not score the number of votes credited to him by the electoral umpires. He further contends that ballot box snatching on the part of the LP candidate and his supporters was rampant in certain locations in the constituency. Ajayi also said that the non-collation of results at the constituency collation stations in Igbokoda by the INEC returning officer was purely gratuitous.

He said, "Rather than do that the returning officer decided to camp himself in a hotel instead of the collation centre throughout the period of collation of election and later diverted the non-collated results to Akure, the state capital where the results were opened to brazen manipulations in favour of the LP candidate".

Consequently, Ajayi is praying the tribunal to take a critical look at the poll figures and also his ballot-snatching allegation in Ilaje and Ese-Odo local government areas with a view to invalidating the declaration of the LP candidate as winner in the parliamentary election and that they should declare him authentic winner of the election or order a re-run election in Ilaje/Ese-Odo federal constituency.

But Rawa and Ajayi are not even alone in the agitation for legal redress as former governor of Ondo State, Dr. Olusegun Agagu, eyeing the senate seat also filed a petition against the victory of the LP candidate, Boluwaji Kunlere in the senatorial race of Ondo South, stressing in his petition that the victory of the LP candidate in some of the local governments he claimed to have defeated the PDP was fraudulent and lacked merit.

Matter-of-factly, if the various applications are anything to go by, then the question on the lips of electors in the state should be how could the returning officer perfect his tricks amid heavy security presence which INEC promised the electorate?

To this end, the IRG boss, Oluwamoyo, calling for the removal of the Minister of Defence, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode for antiparty activities during the parliamentary election in Ondo State, alleged that the minister ordered soldiers to work against the Peoples Democratic Party in the election in the state.

He said, "Even when the National Legal Adviser of PDP, Mr Olusola Oke heard of it, members of the Labour Party went after him and damaged his car. But he complained to INEC supervising officers who, altogether, ignored his complaints.

"The legal adviser later discovered how the Minister of Defence in the person of Prince Adetokunbo Kayode gave the soldiers orders to work for the Labour Party in the state. Following the minister's directives, soldiers assigned to provide security at polling stations in Ilaje terrorized non-supporters of Labour Party.

"I think the minister had a hidden agenda to deliver Ondo State to the Labour Party using the machinery of the armed forces. What we are asking, therefore, is that the election results in Ilaje local government area be canceled for want of merit and a rerun election ordered for the area".

Similarly, an eyewitness and member of the Armed Forces Widows Association who pleaded to be anonymous said that soldiers in Ilaje were seen harassing members of other political parties who were not Labour Party supporters during the National Assembly election in the area.

According to the eyewitness account, "In Okitipupa, on Sunday the following day after the election there was heavy military presence all over the place. There, soldiers were seen harassing non-members of Labour Party; for when you said you are PDP member they would harass you but when a Labour supporter came along they would allow him passage to INEC officials".

The eyewitness, who also claimed to be a monitoring official, said that out of shear curiosity, she asked a soldier who told her that they were counting the votes and PDP was winning.

"Yes, the soldier actually told me that PDP was winning and I observed that after a lengthy period they carried the results out of Okitipupa with soldiers heavily guarding the results to Akure and that was the last we heard of the results of Ilaje/Ese-Odo Federal Constituency.

"Also at Okoga, there was a party of thugs, about six of them in red, who came and began terrorizing voters. These thugs were said to have been brought to the area by one Mr Ayiri, from Delta and Bayelsa States. They were all lodged at Lydia Suites in Okitipupa. These youths used to terrorize people who came out to vote in different centres in Ilaje".

The widow further alleged that at the local government area there was gross intimidation of PDP party followers and even outright arrests of voters believed to be anti-Labour, noting that the returning officer for Ilaje /Ese-Odo Federal Constituency openly declared winner someone who did not win the election.

However, Samuel Ogunmuyiwa, a current affairs analyst in Akure in giving possible explanations for the defence minister's actions in the parliamentary election alleged thus, "It is common knowledge in Ondo State that the Minister of Defence has an ambition to continue as minister in the coming dispensation which he believed he can only get through his nomination by his state governor whom he had already concluded arrangement with to work for his second term; a position he reasoned would put him in good stead to vie for the state governorship position of Ondo State after the expiration of the proposed second term of the incumbent governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko.

Yochuku Ofoka Yobolisa

Daily Champion/10/05/2011