Some opposition political parties in Lagos State have called for outright cancellation of last Saturday’s Local Government Elections in the state, describing the exercise as undemocratic and daylight robbery.
The parties, including the Labour Party (LP), Young Progressives Party (YPP), African Action Congress (AAC), Action People’s Congress (APP) and the Accord Party made the call at a joint news conference yesterday in Lagos.
The leaders of the various parties said that the election conducted by Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC) was full of irregularities, and disenfranchised many opposition candidates.
Speaking, Pastor Dayo Ekong, LP State Chairman, decried what she termed “orchestrated electoral fraud and brazen bias” in the council elections.
Ekong, whose address was read by her deputy, Mr Olasupo Ajayi, described the exercise as a systematic state-sponsored rape of democracy.
“The just-concluded Local Government elections were not an exercise in democratic choice; they were a premeditated, meticulously executed charade designed solely to impose the ruling party’s will upon the people of Lagos.
“We witnessed, and documented, widespread irregularities orchestrated by LASIEC
“We utterly reject the fraudulent results declared by LASIEC in the affected LGAs.
“We hold Justice Bola Ighile personally responsible for this travesty and the complete collapse of LASIEC’s credibility under her watch
“Our resolve is unwavering.We are compiling exhaustive evidence of these atrocities.
“We will explore every legal and constitutional avenue available to challenge this electoral robbery.
“We will not rest until justice is served and the will of the people of Lagos is respected. The Labour Party will not allow this daylight robbery to stand unchallenged,” Ekong said.
She frowned at absence of essential voting materials like ballot papers, result sheets, and even ballot boxes in many local government areas.
Similarly, Mr Olusegun Mobolaji of the YPP, who described the process that led to the polls as flawed, added that over 100 candidates of various political parties were disenfranchised over alleged LASIEC’s rigidity.
Mobolaji, the immediate past Chairman of the State chapter of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), said that logos of some political parties, including that of YPP, APP and LP, were omitted in some local governments.
The former IPAC boss said snatching of ballot boxes, secret relocation of some polling units from their official places and clandestine results collation and other electoral law’s violation characterised the polls.
“The process that led to this poll was full of irregularities and anomalies; even the timetable was contradictory, tedious, choky and unbearable for opposition parties
“Some parties got nomination forms from LASIEC two days to the election because of some issues, how can we ascribe credibility to such an election?
“As we speak, there are a lot of forms paid for by candidates: N150,000 for Chairmanship Candidates, N25,000 for Vice Chairmanship Candidates, and 50,000 for councillorship candidates that LASIEC did not take back from us,” he said.
According to him, all appeal letters written to LASIEC, the governor, the State House of Assembly and Commissioner of Police and department of State Security were not given attention.
“It even took many appeals and protests before the commission could take political party agents lists, and their tags were not ready until the eve of the election.
“As at 9.pm on the eve of the election, YPP was still at LASIEC headquarters to get agent tags and this had to be distributed by the party all over the state for election holding the following day.
“Out of over 3, 000 tags we were supposed to get, we were given only 310. It was not an election. When we complained, LASIEC said we should go and do photocopies Friday night.
“Why did LASIEC removed logos of political parties from the ballot paper when only 15 parties contested?
“People on election day got to the polling units where they used to vote, only to discover that there were no polling units there, or LASIEC officers didn’t come to conduct elections,” he said.