Former governor of Ekiti State, Segun Oni, has rejected the outcome of the just concluded governorship election in the state.
Mr Moses Jolayemi, who is a media aide to the former governor, stated this during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.
“We received it with shock,” he said of the new outcome of the poll in which the former governor was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). “Shock in the sense that nobody expected that they could take it this far.
“We have always known that APC was not sincere about the entire process, but we didn’t know they were going to go this far. So, the result is unaccepted.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Biodun Oyebanji, as the winner of the keenly contested election.
Oyebanji polled 187,057 votes – over 100,000 votes more than that of his closest rival, Oni who scored 82,211 votes in the election. Mr Bisi Kolawole of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came third in the poll with 67,457 votes.
A day after the APC flagbearer was returned elected, Oni who was governor between 2007 and 2010 rejected the outcome of the election, citing electoral malpractices alleged
“We didn’t know they were going to depart completely from all the electoral laws,” Jolayemi added. “Two days before the election, there was a peace accord signed by all the candidates and we thought everybody would abide by that, especially the APC. But on the day of the election, what we saw was a display of thuggery everywhere.
“There are so many places, and we are just compiling the reports; when you snatch the ballot box, what do you want to do with it? It is obviously for manipulation. What we saw was clear vote-buying.”
The SDP candidate’s accused the APC of sponsoring thugs led by an official of the transport union in the state to cause violence during the election.
According to him, Mr Oni has rejected the outcome of the governorship poll won by the ruling party in the state.