Council poll: Obaseki steals Edo people’s mandates—Abure

The National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Barrister Julius Abure has condemned the Local Government Election in Edo State, conducted by the State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC).

He concluded that the Governor Godwin Obaseki led administration stole the election.

Recall that the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission had declared Tom Obaseki, brother of Governor Godwin Obaseki and 17 other candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party winners of the 18 chairmanship seats in the Edo State Local council election held on Saturday.

The EDSIEC Chairman, Justice James Oyomire (retd.), said that the PDP candidates were declared winners having scored the highest number of valid votes in the election.

The contest for the 18 local government chairmanship and 192 councillors seats was then left between the ruling PDP, APC, and the Labour Party.

A statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary, Obiora Ifoh quoted Abure that, democracy can only succeed when the choice made by voters is allowed to count.

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The press statement reads: “Reports from our agents across most of the polling units in the state confirmed that there were deliberate effort by the EDSIEC to frustrate voters by ensuring that the electoral officers either came late to the polling units or didn’t show up at all.

“In few places where the election held, insufficient ballot papers were brought with no single result sheet. But at the end of the day, results were churned out with the candidates of the People’s Democratic Party returning elected.

“Before the election, credible information reached us that the state government had no intention of conducting any election, let alone a credible one.

“The EDSIEC we gathered simply took instructions from the government house and announced an already prepared list as winners of the election.

“Edo people and Nigerians deserve the best to represent them in government. What happened in Edo state was a mockery of democracy and such must not be allowed to stand.

“We therefore call on the state government to also condemn the charade that happened on Saturday, denounce the outcome and call for a fresh and credible election.

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“State Independent Electoral Commissions across Nigeria have failed to help democracy grow. They are purely appendages of the states government and there is nothing independent in them.

“We therefore call on the national assembly to scrap the commission and entrust the conduct of the local government elections on the Independent National Electoral Commission for proper management.

“State Independent Electoral Commission has become an embarrassment to democracy in Nigeria.

Abure therefore canvased for the scraping of state electoral bodies in Nigeria.

“It is therefore time to scrap them so as to restore sanity in our grassroots politics,” the Labour Party chairman said in his dismissal of the Edo local government election.” He stressed.