The inconclusive governorship election in Osun State is generating mixed reactions in the country as party officials woo opponents to get support ahead of Thursday, September 27, rerun election in the state

By Olu Ojewale

The declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that the Osun State gubernatorial election held on Saturday, September 22, was inconclusive is still generating heated arguments across the country. The INEC had on Sunday, September 23, declared the election inconclusive based on cancelled election in some parts of the state.

According to the results released so far, Ademola Adeleke, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, polled 254,698 while Gboyega Oyetola of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, came second with 254,345 votes, but INEC declared that 353 votes’ difference was not enough to declare Adeleke as the winner. Joseph Fuwape, the returning officer and vice-chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, in declaring the poll inconclusive  said: “Unfortunately, it’s not possible to declare anybody as the clear winner of the election on the first ballot.” He said that the total registered voters in the five polling units where elections were cancelled is 3,498 votes, which is higher than number of votes by which the Adeleke is leading, hence, he had to order a rerun.

According to the returning officer, the INEC’s election guideline made pursuant to Section 153 of the Electoral Act stipulates a rerun if the margin of victory in an election is lower than the number of voters in units where elections are cancelled. The electoral body has thus, fixed Thursday, September 27, as the day of the rerun election.

But this has generated a lot of arguments among Nigerians all over. In an article written by Mike Ozehkome, SAN, entitled: “Help, Help, a Compromised INEC is Murdering Nigerians’ Hard Earned Democracy,” the human rights lawyer described the rerun as “is a dangerous subversion and travesty of the electoral process, a blow to our hard earned constitutional democracy and an ominous sign of the farce to expect in 2019-subversion of the people’s will… I wholly condemn this ludicrous mockery of our electoral process and constitutionalism. There is no basis whatsoever, whether in law, constitutionalism, or morality, to have declared the election inconclusive. The Constitution of Nigeria and the Electoral Act ONLY recognise LAWFUL AND VALID VOTES in declaring a candidate winner of an election.”

He cited section 179(2)(a)(b) of the 1999 Constitution (the grundnorm and supreme law of the land ), saying it is crystal clear and unambiguous that Adeleke and PDP had won and met the electoral requirements to be formally  declared winners of the Osun State election. According to Ozekhome, the section provides that: “A candidate for an election to the office of a governor of a state shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, there being two or more candidates (a) he has the highest number of votes cast at the election; and

(b) he has not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each of least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the state.” He said Adeleke satisfied the provision.

The senior advocate of Nigeria argued that failure for the INEC to declare him winner, Adeleke should go to court for redress.  “PDP and Adeleke should immediately head for the court to seek an order of mandamus, compelling INEC to declare him winner. Alternatively, he can approach the Election Petition Tribunal with all the votes cast, urging it to declare him winner. He has won his people’s hearts with his performance in the Senate and mesmerising dance steps of a teenager. INEC, I beg of you, don’t kill our hard earned constitutional democracy on the altar of corruption and official comprise of the ruling party,” he concluded.

Arguing in the same manner, Sunny Okim, a lawyer and social commentator, said he could not find any legal basis for the INEC to refuse to declare Adeleke as the governor-elect of Osun State. He similarly quoted section 179 of the 1999 Constitution. “I have equally looked at Sections 69 & 70 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended which also specifies the conditions a candidate must fulfill to be declared winner of an election into the office of president or governor of a state.”  He said these laws do not provide that the margin of the winner’s votes must be higher than cancelled votes as a condition for the winner to be so declared. Besides, he said the courts had stated that cancelled votes are totally useless in an election especially where results from the lawful votes have been declared. “The law only specifies that the winner should secure the majority of lawful votes cast. Simple! This is what Senator Adeleke has done. Whether its 300 votes or three million votes is immaterial, majority is majority. The standing rules or bye laws of the INEC cannot substitute, alter or add to the clear provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act. INEC cannot impose a condition the Constitution never stipulated as that would amount to a back door amendment of the constitution by an administrative body.  There is, therefore, no legal basis for the INEC to declare the Osun Elections inconclusive. On the contrary, this election was conclusive because we’ve seen all the results from all the 30 Local governments and we know the winner.  Senator Ademola Adeleke has fulfilled all the legal conditions to be so declared,” Okim said.

On his part, Monday Ubani, the immediate-past second vice-president, Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, said that the INEC was right to have declared the election inclonclusive. He said: “under the electoral guideline, which is made in pursuant to the Electoral Act, INEC specified conditions on how to declare an election conclusive, inconclusive or runoff; those provisions are there. Now according to the INEC, there are some polling units that have issues and they cancelled results in those environments. They found out that the registered voters in the affected pulling units totalled 3000.

“You will agree with me that the figure is significant and can make a lot of impact. Then INEC looked at the margin between the two leading contending parties and they discovered that the difference is just 363 and you will agree with me that if everybody in those pulling units were allowed to vote in favour of one candidate, don’t you think that the candidate would be declared the winner. Because the difference is smaller, the INEC declared the election inconclusive in order to take into fairest those whose rights have been denied so that they would have opportunity to exercise their franchise and elect the candidate of their choice. This is why the INEC declared the election inconclusive.”

He pointed out that the INEC declared those areas where votes were cancelled as crisis zones. He, however, asked: “Was there really crisis in those areas? Was the INEC right to declare those areas crisis zones? These are issues of facts because I was not there. But based on the facts presented to us and the reference to the electoral guidelines, the INEC was right to declare the election inconclusive.”

Besides, Ubani said though the constitution said that if someone had gotten majority votes and had satisfied the requirements of the law, he should be declared as the winner of the election. “But let me give you an example, you have five local governments and election took place in three and between A and B. A has the highest votes in three local governments more than B. Can you in honesty in accordance with the Electoral Act declare A as the winner of that election? So, when the PDP is quoting the Constitution, they forgot that for the fact that somebody has majority does not mean that you will declare him/her the winner when election has not taken place in all the polling units,” he said.

In a similar argument, Mukthar Sani, a politician based in Kano, said: “In 2015, the late Abubakar Audu of Kogi State was leading by 240, 867 votes to PDP 199,514 votes, the margin of 41,353 favoured APC but it was declared inconclusive. Rerun was fixed because 49,953 cancelled votes were higher than the 41,353 despite the fact that APC was leading with what is called a giant margin! Nobody shouted rather we waited patiently for the re-run date! I hereby emplore the PDP to do the same for democracy to work perfectly in Nigeria.”

That notwithstanding, both the PDP and the APC appear to looking forward to the rerun election. The rerun, which is a two-horse race  and will not involve 46 other parties that participated in the first ballot, is no doubt crucial, to both Adeleke and Oyetola. In the rerun election, it appears both parties would require the help of Iyiola Omisore, a former senator and deputy governor, who was the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in the gubernatorial election. Omisore is from Ife. The units, which were listed by the commission are two in Orolu Local Government Area, one in Ife South Local Government Area, one in Ife North Local Government Area and one in Osogbo Local Government Area.

Omisore, a former deputy governor to Bisi Akande, a chieftain of the APC, had severed relationship with his former boss and the party he represents long ago. He also left the PDP in anger when he was denied the party ticket to contest the governorship election. Now, he is the beautiful bride to be courted by the two candidates for the Thursday rerun election. Analysts say if the APC should get Omisore’s support and get 80 percent or more of the Ife wards, the party will have a good chance of winning the poll. But there appears to be no one who can do the talking with Omisore in the APC.

Like the APC, Omisore is also unhappy with the PDP, the party which he left in April this year when he allegedly supervised the burning of the PDP flag in Osogbo, the Osun State capital. He eventually left the party vowing never to return. But it appears that he may reconsider his stand as some of the PDP bigwigs have been making an overture for him to support the party in the rerun election. Prominent among those who have spoken to him is Femi Fani-Kayode, a former minister of Aviation.  Fani-Kayode, who is also from Ile Ife like Omisore, confirmed that he had spoken with both Omisore and Adeleke on the issue. The former minister said in a newspaper report that there was a need for the parties to come together and “bury the ruling party in the state on Thursday.”

Apart from Omisore, the PDP was said to be planning to meet with candidates of other political parties such as Fatai Akinbade of the African Democratic Congress and Moshood Adeoti of the Action Democratic Party, for support.

From all indications, the rerun appears to be a sure bet to hold on Thursday, September 22, and if the prognosis is correct, Adeleke is as sure as winning the election.

– Sept. 24, 2018 @ 14:15 GMT |