Lagos State Alliance for Democracy (AD) chairman Kola Ajayi; has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare the party’s candidate, Chief Owolabi Salis winner of the March 9 election.
At a joint conference in Lagos by the AD and Lagos State Labour Party (LP), Ajayi said the party petitioned the Lagos State Electoral Tribunal to invalidate the election of the governor-elect, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He added that the party was not calling for the cancellation of the results but to declare the AD candidate the winner of the polls.
He said: “Though there were evidences that the March 9, governorship election was full of inconsistencies, vote buying and cloning of PVC, we are at the tribunal to demand for justice.
“The number of votes which was slightly over 3,000 ascribed to our candidate was a far cry from what the party polled during the election. The AD members alone in Lagos are over 13,000 members.
“AD won the election in Lagos, we have gathered our material preparatory to making our defence at the tribunal. The international community, local observers and eminent Nigerians who monitored the governorship election made their submission that what INEC declared fell short of expectation.”
Also, the LP governorship candidate Prof. Ifagbemi Awamaridi said the election should be cancelled, noting that his party’s members and agents for the election were not allowed to participate in the election.
He maintained that LP would exhaust every peaceful means to get justice, noting that the party had equally petitioned the electoral tribunal.
According to him, the March 9 election was the most inaccurate election conducted by INEC in Lagos.
“It was very unfortunate that INEC went ahead with the election. When INEC ushered stakeholders to inspect voting materials prior the election, we noticed some deficit which INEC promised to address, but to our chagrin this was not considered.
“Even when I protested during the counting of ballots, I was ordered to be bundled out of the premises but I resisted. The undemocratic tendencies displayed by INEC in collaboration with some security agencies indicated that the process was concocted to favour the ruling party.”F
The Nation
