Kogi West poll: APC urges INEC, others to be transparent

Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

 

All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies to ensure that the November 30, 2019, Kogi West Senatorial District supplementary election holds without a hitch.

In a statement yesterday in Abuja by its National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, the party berated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for asking INEC to cancel the supplementary poll and for threatening to boycott it.

The ruling party said it would not be deterred by the main opposition’s complaints and remain on its guard.

According to the statement, the APC has played by the rules in the elections while the electorate in the senatorial district favoured Senator Smart Adeyemi as their preferred candidate.

APC expressed the confidence that the remaining units for the supplementary will sink Melaye’s dream.

“Senator Dino Melaye did not win the 2019 National Assembly election for the Kogi West Senatorial District. The Appeal Court affirmed just that. Again, the Kogi electorate resisted and frustrated Dino Melaye and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) plan to, again, rig the November 16 rerun for the senatorial seat. No level of propaganda and fake news can change these hard facts.

“The INEC has fixed November 30, 2019 for the senatorial supplementary election in Kogi West. The PDP has predictably gone to town with the usual lamentations on the forthcoming supplementary election. The PDP has even threatened to boycott the election. Who is fooling who?

Read Also: INEC fixes November 30 for Adeyemi, Melaye battle

“Nobody is fooled by the PDP’s statement boycotting the supplementary election. The APC will not drop its guard in our quest to get a clear majority of the remaining votes in the affected units. Why should the supplementary election be cancelled, as being demanded by the PDP? Is it because the PDP has already lost the election?

“As the wide margin of valid votes from the November 16 exercise shows, it is clear that Dino Melaye and the PDP have lost the election. PDP’s doomsday will surely not be postponed a second time. Come November 30, the APC candidate, Senator Smart Adeyemi, will reclaim his earlier stolen mandate.

“How many times does the PDP need to be reminded that APC has not and will not copy the PDP’s inglorious tactics of using state institutions, particularly INEC, the Judiciary and security agencies, to manipulate the electioneering process?

“We call on INEC and relevant security agencies to ensure that everything needed to make the November 30 senatorial supplementary election in Kogi transparent, free, credible and safe is put in place,” the statement said.