BY DAPO AKINREFON
THE governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the October 20 election in Ondo State, Chief Olusola Oke has vowed to legally challenge the result of the elections.

In a statement by his Special  Adviser, Media and Publicity, Kunle Adebayo, Chief Oke said not  challenging the results of the poll “is collaborating with injustice and perfidy which is the greatest disservice to democracy”.

The PDP governorship candidate, who called for a probe of the alleged role of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in the election alleged that “both the commission and security services who operated in the state showed bad examples and will be threats to subsequent election in the country if not exposed.”

On his resolve to seek legal redress, he said “Mimiko is enjoying a stolen mandate through an election marred by severe irregularities, widespread malpractices, vitiating  distortions and perversions allegedly by INEC in collaboration with the state government and security forces in the state”.

Accordingly, Oke argued that “it is sad that Nigeria’s rising profile in free and fair electoral process may be stained by the dirty  facts  behind this election.

All our investigations , collated reports as well as reports by first class election observers and monitors have shown massive evidence of monumental corruption and manipulation of INEC’s documents and the entire electoral process”.

He added that “quite regrettably and shamefully, INEC allowed its voters register to be overloaded with as much as over 150,000 strange names.  This is against the background that no new voters registration took place in the state after the 2011 elections.

This crime was allowed in spite of our repeated petitions and public complaints to INEC that the ruling government was planning to clone voters cards and inject fake names into the voters register.

It is sad that in spite of Prof. Attahiru Jega’s assurances, citizens’ database found its way unedited and unfettered into the sacrosanct INEC voters’ register.

Cases of daylight violation of the electoral process as well as ballot stuffing in the rural areas, were also graphically captured and reported.”

“Mimiko himself knows he is sitting on a stolen mandate. INEC knows what it did, we are only sad that Prof Attahiru  Jega is allowing termites to eat the monument he has built,” he stated.