The All Progressives Congress (APC) has demanded the immediate announcement of the authentic results of Saturday’s rerun in the Offa local government by the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWASIEC).
In a statement issued in London on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the cooked results announced by the Kwara PDP on Sunday, in which the party brazenly converted its defeat to victory, are totally unacceptable and will not stand.
It said that according to the authentic results of the elections, which are in possession of KWASIEC as well as security agencies, the APC got 11,526 votes to PDP’s 4,668, as against the cooked figures announced by the PDP in Ilorin, which awarded the PDP 35,937 and the APC 20,161.
APC expressed shock at the antics of the Electoral Officer (EO) of the Offa local government and other KWASIEC officials, who sneaked out of the local government collation centre just when the results were to be announced and have yet to carry out their assigned duties.
”The next thing was that the PDP took the laws into its own hands and announced the cooked results via the state’s radio station Sunday morning. This impunity is condemnable and will be fought to a logical conclusion using the instrumentality of the law..
”There is no iota of doubt that the APC won the elections. It is common knowledge that if the elections were conducted 10 times, APC will beat the PDP 10 times. Offa people know who they voted for and are ready to defend their votes. Therefore, any attempt to thwart the will of the people will be resisted to the hilt.
”Thanks to technology, which has made rigging both unfashionable and untenable, the results of the elections were collated ward by ward and available to all. Even the people successfully challenged the PDP’s plan to rig the polls by ensuring that only 100 of the 500 ballot papers for each polling booth were supplied. The people demanded and got all 500 votes for each of the 86 polling booths, thus making it impossible for the PDP to steal 400 votes from each polling booth,” it said.
While appealing to its members and supporters to remain peaceful, APC warned against any attempt to provoke the people who went out peacefully to elect their councillors and Chairman on Saturday.
”For any government to have legitimacy, it must derive such from the people. But where the will of the people is being wilfully subverted, it can only be an invitation to anarchy, which has now become the hallmark of the PDP. Little wonder the party has now broken up. That is what happens when a party is anti-democratic and recklessly subverts the will of the people.
”Therefore, we demand the immediate announcement of the authentic results and the swearing in of the Chairman, who was elected on the platform of the APC. Nothing else will be acceptable to our party and the people of Offa local government,” the party warned.
