… INEC Declares Lawal Idrisu Winner Of Ajaokuta Federal Constituency Rerun election
From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
The Kogi state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor James Apam has blamed the low voter turnout on Saturday’s rerun Senatorial and Reps polls on political partie’s failure to effectively mobilised their supporters to go out and cast their votes.
He was speaking during the rerun election for Kogi West, which the senator representing the District in the seventh Assembly, Dino Melaye lost to his long time rival and two term senator who represented Kogi west in the fourth and fifth assembly, Smart Adeyemi.
While speaking with newsmen shortly before setting out to monitor the election,the REC said the parties should be blamed.
Apam said that instead of the political parties to embark on membership drive aimed at convincing their supporters on the need to come out and vote for them would not do so but turn around to blame INEC for poor turnout of voters.
Our correspondent who went round noticed low turn out blamed on fear of repeat performance of the violence that greeted the November 16 election.
Bala Bariga,a PDP chieftain who spoke with our correspondent at Ward C,Unit 001attributed the low turn out to fear of vote not counting as it was during the last election.
He also said more voters stayed away for fear of being caught in any cross fire.
However,there were no reported case of violence as the few voters on the queue were seen casting their votes without any incidence.
Our correspondent also visited Ward D,Yaragi polling unit 002 where voters were seen casting their votes peacefully.
Earlier the returning officer, Professor Olaide Lawal from Federal University, Oye,-Ekiti had said that the rerun became necessary in view of the fact that no clear winner emerged in the last Senatorial election held on November 2019. Adeyemi polled a total of 88,373 votes to dwarf his main opponent Dino Melaye who polled 62,133 votes.
He said that the margin of win was less than the cancelled votes which means,the election was inconclusive according to electoral laws.
Meanwhile, former Senator Dino Melaye have vowed to approach the courts to seek redress.
The maverick politician who spoke shortly after casting his vote on Saturday said that he would be approaching the election petition tribunal if the Independent National Electoral Commission does not review the last election.
“What we have as result is fraud… a major fraud,” the November 16 election was a fraud that would not stand.”
He said he has sent petitions to the effect that the earlier election was fraudulent, while “the supplementary election amounts to building something on nothing.
In a related development, the INEC has declared Hon Idirisu Lawal of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the Ajaokuta Federal Constituency rerun election.
According to the result announced by the returning officer, Prof Rabiu Balarabe, Lawal polled 13,738 votes in the affected 22 polling units to defeat the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Aloysius Okino who recorded 9,176 votes.
The Appeal Court, in October, had sacked Lawal as member representing Ajaokuta constituency in the House of Representatives.
The court, in its ruling, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct rerun elections in 22 polling units in the constituency. The appeal was filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate, Aloysius Okino.
Reacting to INEC declaration of result, Lawal hailed the constibutions of Governor Yahaya Bello, the administrator of Ajaokuta LGA, Hon. Mustapha Akaaba and the member representing Ajaokuta Constituency in the state Assembly, Hon . Abdullahi Hassan Balogun for standing tall to ensure the victory of the party.
He also commended INEC for conducting a credible free and fair re-run and the security agencies for creating a peaceful and a calm environment for the electorate at the 22 polling units across the Constituency to exercise their franchise.
