Dear Lagosians,
THE SITUATION ABOUT MY ELECTION THAT YOU HAVE BEEN LONGING TO KNOW
I won my election in Oshodi/Isolo constituency 1 from the collated results available to us from our own situation room. I won with a land slide margin. It is visible to the blind, and the news is audible to the deaf.
Almost everybody is talking about it in Oshodi/Isolo that Olukayode Salako won the election.
But, I contested in a constituency, where everybody knows is the most socio-dangerously peculiar constituency in Lagos – The MC Oluomo base.
As I speak, they have subjected the INEC authority in my constituency in their usual manner to be working under duress to do their binding.
They want to announce the candidate of their party, who came a distant second to me as the winner, but can’t come out publicly to do it. They are doing what they have been doing confidentially privately.
Since the day we had the election, it has been flagrant and impunitive display of incidence of political gangsterism; impunity and terrorism within the Oshodi/Isolo environment.
Anyway, that is what the environment is know for from time immemorial.
My collation agent, as well as, the representatives of our party, present to play one role, or another were brutally attacked inside their so-called collation centre at Owoseni Primary School venue of the exercise.
Those who were lynched were lynched, and those, who were seriously beaten up were beaten up. Eventually they were able to over power the security system, and sent away those they didn’t want to see at the centre in order to create a free environment for the perpetration of their results manipulation machinations.
As I speak, some of our members, wounded are in the hospital, receiving treatments.
Eventually, as I got the report, they were able to collate the results manually; wrote it the way they wanted, and are planning to daringly name Hon. Bashiru Dawodu, the man Oshodi/Isolo people did not vote for their own winner in the election, without a recourse to what the INEC server says about the electronic uploading of results, first before any results is announced.
As I write, the results of the election are not completely captured by the INEC B-VAS machine and uploaded on the INEC server.
Where then did they get the results they collated and say they announced on that 2:30am of Monday night.
The law says results must first of all be announced at the polling unit, where the election is cast, captured on the B-VAS machine and immediately transmitted to the INEC server.
The intention is to give the election credibility and ensure that results are not falsified by anybody, but in the case of the last Saturday election, the reverse was the case.
However, up till now, that has not been completely done. The excuse is that there is no network to get it completely done, and you are daringly compiling results on your own and struggle to name a winner of your own.
How did you get the results you are banding about?!
Eye witness reports from people, who were present inside the collation centre say, all they did was to swap the results.
They hurriedly swapped the results, because according to them, there wasn’t enough time to keep re-writing my results to favour them.
As I was briefed, they eventually gave mine to Bashiru Dawodu, and that of Bashiru Dawodu to mine.
After which they hired the service of a collation agent I did not appoint, know, or approve to witness, or sign anything for me as the candidate of the election.
As I speak, I have not heard from the person, who signed for me, because I do not know who he is inside Labour Party in Oshodi/Oshodi constituency 1, where I operate.
The agent that was supposed to represent me had been attacked and brutally wounded. He is still in the hospital as I write.
On the reason of the above, I Olukayode Ezekiel Salako, the candidate of the Labour Party for the House of Representatives election in Oshodi/Isolo constituency 1 in the Saturday, February 25, 2023, hereby dissociate myself from any purported results, which might have announced any winner other than me for the national assembly election, and totally reject the outcome of the election, until the right thing is done about it at the nick of time.
I dissociate myself from the results announced on the night of Monday, February 27, 2023, because the procedure that produced it was marred by impunitive fraudulent operations, and it is totally against the lay down electoral rule and laws of INEC, as stipulated in the new electoral acts, governing the operations of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
As I have been asking since the day of the election, what is now the usefulness and essence of the B-VAS accreditation and INEC I-REV results uploading technology innovational systems, introduced by INEC to give the election process good credibility in Nigeria, if a group of people can still sit down to collate election results manually; write their own results manually and announce the winner they want manually by refusing to transmit the results on the B-VAS machine and uploading on the INEC server for verification purposes.
What is the difference between the old system and the new system then?!
As I write, it is only the results of about 150 polling units of the areas of voting strength of the APC you would see on the INEC server out of about 357 polling units, allocated by INEC for Oshodi/Isolo constituency 1.
Other polling unit areas, where we won convincingly to give us the expected victory have are not yet been uploaded up till now.
So, I join other prominent political stakeholders in the polity to condemn the way the election has been run and the credibility of the way the results are being collated and winners declared.
The process have been marred by irregularities, technical rigging machinations and day-light-robbery of the mandates of candidates like me.
I call on the Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC in Lagos State to intervene my issue, as the original results that I have with me directly from the polling units on the day of election show that I won the election convincingly and with a landslide margin.
Out of the 5 political wards within Oshodi/Isolo constituency 1, the collated results I have with me say I won 4. It is only Oshodi, MC Oluomo’s base, and where political thugs did not allow people to vote freely that is not yet clear, whether I won, or lost.
Because the complete results are not yet uploaded on the INEC server for us to see.
And, we believe, not uploading those results by now is deliberate.
I hereby state it unequivocally again that I reject the results collated manually; packaged manually and shroudedly announced manually to give Hon. Bashiru Dawodu of APC the purported victory.
In spite of the fact that the political thugs of their party were on attacking, assaulting and shooting rampage on the day of the election, destroying election activities and burning ballot boxes in about 14 polling units within the constituency, the results evidently available to us say we still won the election with wide margin.
So, it is not acceptable for anybody else to be declared the winner in the purported election that lacked procedural credibility.
From the results we have with us from all the polling units and signed by the INEC officials in charge of the election, I won the election convincingly.
I, therefore, want to assure that we are still engaging with the INEC authority for the right winner to be announced.
As far as I am concerned, INEC hasn’t publicly come out to announce anybody yet, and our lawyers are already working to make sure the right thing is done about it.
I have since confirmed from Mr. Nze Sylvester, who is the official agent of the party in the local government that he is not the one who signed the purported results they are banding about.
Mr. Nze was brutally assaulted and sent away so, he couldn’t stay at the Collation Centre to sign any result on my behalf.
The same way our agents were attacked and chased away in many of the poling stations during the election.
But, in spite of all, the results in our hands say way still won the election with wide margin.
If Peter Obi can win with landslide in Oshodi/Isolo local government. Barr. Joe Okey-Onakualusi can win with landslide in Oshodi/Isolo constituency 2.
They now want the world to believe that Olukayode Salako, who built the winning political structures across the local governments for Labour Party in Lagos State, lost in his own base.
How can that be possible?!
Thank you!
– Olukayode Ezekiel Salako,
HOR Candidate of Labour Party,
Oshodi/Isolo Constituency 1,
Lagos State.
