Some opposition political parties in Lagos State have called for outright cancellation of the Saturday’s Local Government Elections in the state, describing the exercise as undemocratic and daylight robbery.
The parties, including the Labour Party (LP), Young Progressives Party (YPP), African Action Congress (AAC), Action People’s Congress (APP) and the Accord Party (AP), made the call at a joint news conference in Lagos on Tuesday.
Leaders of the various parties said that the election conducted by Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) was full of irregularities and disenfranchised many opposition candidates.
Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria, Pastor Dayo Ekong, LP State Chairman, decried what she termed “orchestrated electoral fraud and brazen bias” in the council elections.
Ekong, whose address was read by her deputy, Mr Olasupo Ajayi, described the exercise as a systematic state-sponsored rape of democracy.
“The just-concluded Local Government elections were not an exercise in democratic choice; they were a premeditated, meticulously executed charade designed solely to impose the ruling party’s will upon the people of Lagos.
“We witnessed, and documented, widespread irregularities orchestrated by LASIEC
“We utterly reject the fraudulent results declared by LASIEC in the affected LGAs.
“We hold Justice Bola Ighile personally responsible for this travesty and the complete collapse of LASIEC’s credibility under her watch
“Our resolve is unwavering.We are compiling exhaustive evidence of these atrocities.
“We will explore every legal and constitutional avenue available to challenge this electoral robbery.
“We will not rest until justice is served and the will of the people of Lagos is respected. The Labour Party will not allow this daylight robbery to stand unchallenged,” Ekong said.
She frowned at absence of essential voting materials like ballot papers, result sheets, and even ballot boxes in many local government areas.
Similarly, Mr Olusegun Mobolaji of the YPP, who described the process that led to the polls as flawed, added that over 100 candidates of various political parties were disenfranchised over alleged LASIEC’s rigidity.
Mobolaji, the immediate past Chairman of the State chapter of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), said that logos of some political parties, including that of YPP, APP and LP, were omitted in some local governments.
The former IPAC boss said snatching of ballot boxes, secret relocation of some polling units from their official places and clandestine results collation ,and other electoral law’s violation characterised the polls.
“The process that led to this poll was full of irregularities and anomalies; even the timetable was contradictory, tedious, choky and unbearable for opposition parties
“Some parties got nomination forms from LASIEC two days to the election because of some issues, how can we ascribe credibility to such an election?
“As we speak, there are a lot of forms paid for by candidates: N150,000 for Chairmanship Candidates, N25,000 for Vice Chairmanship Candidates, and 50,000 for councillorship candidates that LASIEC did not take back from us,” he said.
According to him, all appeal letters written to LASIEC, the governor, the State House of Assembly and Commissioner of Police and department of State Security were not given attention.
“It even took many appeals and protests before the commission could take political party agents lists, and their tags were not ready until the eve of the election.
“As at 9.pm on the eve of the election, YPP was still at LASIEC headquarters to get agent tags and this had to be distributed by the party all over the state for election holding the following day.
“Out of over 3, 000 tags we were supposed to get , we were given only 310 . It was not an election.When we complained, LASIEC said we should go and do photocopies Friday night.
“Why did LASIEC removed logos of political parties from the ballot paper when only 15 parties contested?
“People on election day got to the polling units where they used to vote, only to discover that there were no polling units there, or LASIEC officers didn’t come to conduct elections.
“In some polling units, the voter register list, brought by LASIEC, had names and pictures totally different from those who were supposed to vote there. We have videos and pictures to back up all these,” he said.
According to him, the election results should be nullified and cancelled.
Also, the State APP Chairman and Secretary of IPAC , Mrs Abiola Adeyemi, said that she was nearly beaten by alleged APC thugs in Badagry for complaining over removal of the APP logo from the ballots in Badagry.
Corroborating, Mr Dele Oladeji, the State Chairman of Accord, said that political parties contested against LASIEC and not among themselves.
Oladeji said that contrary to norms, stakeholders were not given the opportunity to monitor distribution of sensitive materials for the election, saying the umpire glaringly showed bias.
“LASIEC acted as election players not as umpire. We actually contested against LASIEC. It was a systematic rigging orchestrated prior to the election day.
“We went into the election blindfolded because of the intended compromise. We were not allowed access to the ballot paper before the polls.
“LASIEC declared winners without results. So, we are calling on LASIEC to present the results to political parties and the public for us to scrutinise it.
“We know LASIEC will not listen to our appeal and we have decided to approach the tribunal and court where applicable,” Oladeji said.
NAN reports that APC won all 57 chairmanship seats and 375 out of 376 councillorship seats in the council election held on Saturday, according to LASIEC.
Reacting to the results on Sunday, the APC, in a statement by its State Publicity Secretary, Mr Seye Oladejo, thanked the electorate,saying the results reflected the will of residents.
