Observers at Thursday’s guber election re-run in Osun have adjudged it violent, not free and fair.
Mr. Abiodun Ajijala, National Coordinator, Election Monitors and Dr. Mrs. Abiola Akiode-Afolabi, Chair, Transition Monitoring Group, guests on the Channels Television programme, Politics Today, said last Saturday’s guber election was by all means better than Thursday’s process.
Comparing Saturday’s process and Thursday’s, Mr. Ajijala said; “Saturday was peaceful, today was not. Observers were arrested by policemen on the grounds that they were not properly identified. But the ID Card they had today was the same they used last Saturday without molestation.”
According to him, they were eventually released after the intervention of INEC officials. He said further; “After they were released, they were asked to go home and stay away from the polling units. But again INEC officials intervened.
“A journalist was also attacked and macheted by some thugs and many had their cameras destroyed at one of the places in Orolu.”
On the positive side however, he noted that “INEC did well in terms of the management of election process. All polling units had materials, the card readers were working and units opened on time. There was no failure in election management, however, there were security challenges.”
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Dr. Akiode-Afolabi, in her own contribution said; “it was quite challenging today more than any other time. It was quite violent as political parties saw it as a do or die affair. Kajola especially was violent. Voters were being prevented from voting, observers and journalists were harassed.
“Today was not free, it was not fair. There were a lot of issues. There were the good, the bad and the ugly. There were a lot of funny looking guys around the place. The location too was problematic being in the bush and that contributed to the situation.”
Meanwhile, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Osun, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, however said he was not surprised by the turn of events at Thursday’s re-run election, insisting that “such should be expected. The election was free generally. You can’t do this kind of election and not have issues.” Asked by the anchor of the programme, Seun Akinbaloye if the process was also peaceful, Agbaje said, “It is peaceful.”
Both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the re-run, Senator Ademola Adeleke, have rejected the entire process calling on electoral umpire to declare Adeleke winner.
