September 25, 2018
Press Conference
Osun Guber Malpractices: PDP Demands Prof. Mahmood Yakubu And Amina Zakari’s Resignation From INEC
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) demands the immediate resignation of
the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, following his controlling role in the fraudulent
manipulations that characterized the September 22, 2018, Osun State
Governorship election.
In the same vein, the PDP also calls for the resignation of Mrs. Amina
Zakari, the INEC Director of Operations, who is also in charge of
Information Communication Technology (ICT) Department, where election
results were altered to favour the APC
With INEC’s fraudulent conduct in the Osun Governorship election, and
approval that a concluded election be declared inconclusive, the PDP and
indeed all well-meaning Nigerians no longer have confidence in Prof.
Yakubu.
It is completely inexcusable that Prof. Yakubu presides over an
atrocious and compromised electoral umpire that manipulates electoral
processes, doctors figures, allocates fictitious votes and subverts the
will of the people in an election.
The PDP has additional documentary evidence of how this compromised
INEC, through its Operations and ICT Department, doctored results from
polling centers, directly shortchanged the PDP with no fewer than 4,387
votes by slashing votes cast for the PDP at the polling centers while
allocating fictitious figures to the APC.
The PDP has facts on how INEC slashed over 1000 votes freely cast by the
people for our candidate, Senator Ademola Adeleke, in Ayedaade Local
Government Area, just to reduce our votes from our legitimate 10,836
votes cast at the polling centers to 9,836 votes so as to give APC the
lead with a 1000 vote margin in the local government.
Also, the PDP has evidence of how INEC, while collating results,
directly allocated over 1,367 fictitious votes to the APC in Olorunda
Local Government Area, to fraudulently shore up the APC votes to
duplicitous 16,254 votes. This is in addition to evidence of how INEC
awarded over 2,000 fictitious votes in favour of the APC in Oshogbo to
push APC’s vote to 23,379 against the actual 21,479 votes scored by the
defeated party.
Such writing of results by INEC in collusion with the APC occurred in
many other areas leading to INEC’s ill-fated directives to its junior
officials, including the one apprehended in Ayedaade, to destroy results
already displayed at polling and collation centers.
It was after INEC and the APC realized that despite their manipulation
of figures, our candidate still scored the highest number of votes,
making him the clear winner of the election, that they decided to
fraudulently apply unconstitutional grounds to declare the election
inconclusive.
From the facts available to us, INEC robbed our party of over 4,387
votes. Our actual winning margin stands at 4,740 votes against the 353
votes declared by INEC.
Furthermore, while the PDP, in rejecting INEC’s declaration, is resolute
in the decision to seek legal redress and take our mandate, freely given
to our candidate by the people of Osun State, our party has also
discovered schemes perfected by INEC to rig its planned supplementary
election in favour of the APC.
The PDP is already aware that INEC has increased the original number of
voters in the affected polling centers by over 850 so as to expand its
latitude to manipulate results with uncollected Permanent Voter Card
(PVCs); a development, which further shows INEC’s determination to rig
the election for APC.
The PDP holds that the shenanigan that has characterized the Osun
governorship election is a testing measure by the APC in collusion with
INEC to rig the 2019 general elections, particularly the Presidential
election, which they plan to plunge into similar controversy immediately
it becomes obvious that APC is losing.
Our fear is that such will push our nation into an irretrievable state
of anarchy and spell doom to our democracy.
While Prof. Mahmood Yakubu can no longer be trusted to conduct the 2019
general elections, it is public knowledge that Mrs. Amina Zakari, the
INEC Director in charge of Operations and ICT is a direct blood relation
of Mr. President and as such, we believe that she cannot be an impartial
arbiter in an election involving her uncle.
The PDP therefore calls on all patriotic Nigerians to join in the demand
for the resignation of Prof. Yakubu and Mrs. Zakari so as to avert this
dangerous path, where INEC is leading our nation.
As a law abiding and people-oriented political party, all that the PDP
is demanding for is the return of our candidate, Senator Ademola
Adeleke, as the duly returned candidate at the September 22, 2018 Osun
Governorship Election.
We call on INEC to guarantee free, fair and credible election at all
levels of engagement, as we will not allow unpatriotic individuals to
destroy our nation with their inordinate and selfish aspirations.
Signed:
Kola Ologbondiyan
National Publicity Secretary
