Coalition of observer groups and Civil Society Organisations that observed
and monitored the Saturday July 14th Governorship elections in Ekiti State
have condemned the announcement of the All Progressives Congress APC
candidate John Kayode Fayemi as the winner of the elections.
In a press statement, the group said the election does not reflect what
they saw on ground and its will open up on the true findings coming
Wednesday 18th July 2018 with details of the malpractices that greeted the
election.
The Coalition in a press statement signed by its contact persons Comrade
Haruna Farouk and Nze Adachi Okoro said it was regrettable that the
Independent national Electoral Commission as well as the security agencies
could be used to short change the people of the state the way they did on
the day of the elections.
The Coalition said it has gathered evidence that will show how the
election was massively rigged describing the situation as a sad moment for
democracy in the country. “We have evidences of election malpractices
where a particular party in connivance with security personnel went about
inducing electorates with cash and coercing them to snap the ballot papers
in order to receive cash gifts from the agents of the party in question.
“The level of intimidation that occurred during the elections on Saturday
was disheartening and shouldn’t be allowed to stand in modern day Nigeria.
We witnessed a situation where loyalists of the Peoples Democratic Party
PDP and its agents were harassed and intimidated so as to make it
difficult for them to participate in the elections.
“Other incidence that we recorded will be made open in our findings which
will definitely shock Nigerians and expose the conspiracy of INEC,
Security agents and the APC to deprive the people of Ekiti from expressing
their constitutional rights.”
The Coalition called on the international community to condemn what it
called the ‘political terrorism’ that took place against the people of
Ekiti state on Saturday stressing that their voice against the actions of
the Federal Government, INEC and Security agents will help put pressure on
the government to do the right thing.