Ekiti’s off season election result

Biodun Oyebanji and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), are savouring his landslide victory in last Saturday’s Ekiti state governorship election. Announcing Oyebanji’ win, prof. Oyebode Adebowale, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s returning officer, said the candidate polled 187, 057 votes, more than double votes for the candidate that came second. “Biodun Oyebanji, the candidate of APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and returned,” Adebowale declared.

The INEC returning officer, who is the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, while giving the breakdown of votes scored by the participating political parties, said that Segun Oni, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, scored 82, 211, to come second. Others were the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose candidate, Chief Bisi Kolawole, polled 67,457; Accord (A) scored 166; African Action Congress (AAC) 409; All Progressives Grand Alliance,(APGA) 17 while Action Democratic Congress (ADC) received 141 votes. Action Democratic Party (ADP) scored 5,597; Allied Peoples Movement (APM) -290; Labour Party (LP) polled 195 votes; New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) scored 529 and National Rescue Movement (NRM) 347. The rest were: Young Progressives Party (YPP)-618; All Peoples Party (APP) polled 1,980 and Zenith Labour Party,(ZLP) polled 282; Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) polled 856.

The voter register for Ekiti state had 989,224 names on it. Those accredited on polling day were 363,438, barely a third of  those on the register. There were 35,1865 valid votes and voided votes were 8,888. The APC won in 15 local council area’s while PDP won in one. 

Besides the low turn-out, there were issues of vote buying and ballot box snatching. Ekiti South West local government area’s collation officer, Prof. Gbolagade Jonathan, reported that ballot boxes were snatched from units 5 and 7 in ward 6. According to him, gunmen stormed the units and took away the boxes as votes were about to be counted. The two units had 266 and 128 accredited voters respectively. Observers reported that vote buying was rampant and involved all the parties that participated in the election. They, however, said polling was peaceful across the state. 

We also note with satisfaction the coolheadedness of the losers who opted to challenge the election result in court, not on the streets. That way they avoided bloodshed.  Kudos to them. We also congratulate the INEC for doing a good job. But we urge it to find a way to get political parties and their candidates to desist from offering money for votes. We cannot grow a healthy political culture this way.