Coalition of observer groups and Civil Society Organisations that observed and monitored the Saturday July 14th Governorship elections in Ekiti State, have released a statement, rejecting the result released by INEC announcing APC candidate, Kayode Fayemi, as the winner of the election.
In a press statement released by its officials Comrade Haruna Farouk and Nze Adachi Okoro, the group said the election does not reflect what they saw on ground, adding that it will release their report on Wednesday July 18th which will contain details of the malpractices that characterised the election.
According to the group, it has gathered enough evidence to back up its claims that the election was marred by irregular practices. Describing the election as political terrorism, the group said
“We have evidences of election malpractices where a particular party in connivance with security personnel went about inducing electorates with cash and coercing them to snap the ballot papers in order to receive cash gifts from the agents of the party in question. The level of intimidation that occurred during the elections on Saturday was disheartening and shouldn’t be allowed to stand in modern day Nigeria. We witnessed a situation where loyalists of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP and its agents were harassed and intimidated so as to make it difficult for them to participate in the elections. Other incidence that we recorded will be made open in our findings which will definitely shock Nigerians and expose the conspiracy of INEC, Security agents and the APC to deprive the people of Ekiti from expressing their constitutional rights.”
The Coalition said it was regrettable that the Independent national Electoral Commission as well as the security agencies could be used to short change the people of the state the way they did on the day of the election.
