Don’t Tamper with Election Materials, Oni Warns APC, INEC

Don’t Tamper with Election Materials, Oni Warns APC, INEC

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) governorship candidate in the Ekiti State June 18, Segun Oni, has warned  the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against tinkering with the election materials to favour the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the Election Petition Tribunal.

Oni said the warning became expedient following alleged subterranean attempt by the INEC to secretly allow the APC candidate, Mr. Biodun Oyebanji, access to some election materials to either thwart or pervert justice at the tribunal.

The SDP candidate, in a statement issued yesterday by the Director of Media and Publicity, Segun Oni Campaign Organisation, Jackson Adebayo, claimed that he had veracious evidence suggesting that Oyebanji had got INEC’s nod to inspect the election materials in the custody of the commission.

Oni said: “For God’s sake, what inspection and election materials do a candidate who won an election and has been issued a certificate of returns want an inspection for? Is it to increase his winning votes or what?”

“The conclusion by SOCO is that the APC has a dubious tendency considering the party’s undemocratic behaviour by hiding to evade the tribunal’s service until it later realised the consequences of its action.

“It is very certain that the INEC has succumbed to the pressure of  APC to find its way to the election materials in the custody of INEC, to further manipulate the last election materials to suit their election whims and caprices by either illegally or through the back-end void some votes, destroy votes, cast new votes, and change a total number of votes.

“Since losing at the tribunal is staring at APC, it is crystal clear that the APC is about perpetrating election after election.”

Oni stated further that when the SDP got the tribunal’s permission to inspect the materials, the INEC refused to cooperate.

He explained further: “The last time the SDP inspection team arrived at the INEC office for the inspection that was fixed by INEC, sadly, SDP could not undertake the inspection because the INEC staff that was to guide the team was scheduled for another assignment, and as such, the SDP was advised to wait to conduct its inspection with the APC that was not even interested in the tribunal from the outset.

According to him, “How come APC is suddenly eager to inspect election materials?

“This dubious partnership was part of the pre-election working agreements between the key figures of APC and PDP in Ekiti State who had conspiratorial vicious hatred for Segun Oni with the fear that by working together, they will continue to have a strong grip on the affairs of Ekiti State despite their disappointing performances in many years.

“The Ekiti people should not allow election after election, which the APC is praying for badly, because Oni surprised the APC and PDP for coming second in the election.”