Prince Adewole Adebayo, the 2023 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has shared his thoughts on the recently concluded off-cycle polls in Bayelsa and Kogi State.
According to him, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was clearly dishonest in conducting the polls.
He argued that even the winner of the Bayelsa election, Governor Douye Diri expressed his dissatisfaction with the conduct of the polls.
“We have a problem with all the elections not just Kogi State. Look at a state like Bayelsa where the governor who has been declared winner of the election said that in some parts of the state, BVAS was boycotted or bypassed. If the winner of the election can say that about the process of the election, it should draw the attention of INEC,” he said.
While acknowledging he has no problem with INEC as an electoral umpire, he said his main concern is the process used by the body to declare the winner in the Kogi polls.
Adebayo disclosed that when they tried to warn the returning officer about some discrepancies they were shut down and threatened.
READ ALSO: Kogi Polls: Yahaya Bello Vows To Punish Cabinet Members Who Betrayed Him
“We are not saying that INEC is hopeless, I don’t think so. I believe that INEC is a human and necessary institution and I have confidence that there are good people working in INEC. I don’t have a problem with INEC, I have a problem with the process INEC used in declaring the result in Kogi State.
“We took every step to warn them about the problem in Kogi State, about the voters register and other things including staff of the commission ab initio and INEC said they will look into it. In the course of the election, we warned them about the problems of over voting and factious numbers but it appeared that the Returning Officer was not interested; he even threatened to have our agent removed. We have written INEC stating what happened and we gave INEC all the options and citing all the laws that require them to do a review but INEC has not replied.
“We are putting fate in the system, we believe that we need INEC, we must have an electoral umpire that people can believe in. Nigeria cannot be so unfortunate that we don’t have 20 people who can run elections in the commission,” Adebayo said in a chat with The Sun.
