By Jamiu Ganiyu
Because of the uncertainties that characterized the waiting period of the Supreme Court judgment on Osun Governorship poll, the Resident Electoral Commission of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Osun State, Mr. Olusegun Agbaje, has said he moved eighty percent of his luggage to Lagos in fulfilment of his pledge to resign if the judgment had gone in favour of Senator Ademola Adeleke.
The Osun INEC boss disclosed this to osunreportersng.com in an exclusive interview where he spoke at length on the various issues that characterised the last year gubernatorial election of the state a penultimate week ago at his office in Osogbo, the state capital.
Below was the extract of the interview:
Question:
It was rumored after the election that you said you were going to resign if the apex court in the land rules against the decision of the INEC, is it true?
Answer:
It was not a rumor, I wrote it down when we were giving the Governor-elect the certificate of return that time, it was in my speech, very clear that myself, my Secretary, my HOD Admin and other officers here kept sleepless night and if at the end they say we did what was wrong I will believe something is wrong with us in Nigeria.
I will just leave and go home even before the final judgment 80% of my luggages are already in Lagos because you don’t know which way it will go and I have made that commitment, people were even calling my phone that you said you were going to be free and fair when you came to our church, I replied them yes we were because what we went through at Ife South during the second election because we would have had what we call over voting if not because competent officers were on ground and I believe the political actors can help us out.
Speaking specifically on why the election was declared inconclusive, the INEC boss said it followed the provision of electoral acts at arriving the decision.
Excerpts:
Sir, During the last Governorship election in Osun State, the Returning Officer declared the election inconclusive due to Orolu, Osogbo, Ife North and Ife South Local Governments election crises. According to the electoral act, what can make an election Inconclusive?
Thank you very much. When there is violence during the conduct of an election in an area and by the time you are doing your computation and the number of registered voters in those polling units where elections were marred is greater than the difference between the first and second candidates, you would assume that if those people had voted, the results could have gone either way, either for the leading candidate or the runner up. so because of that, you can say the election is inconclusive. It is possible to have singular scenario where an election can be conclusive when there is violence in a particular polling unit like in Osun State last year, if we have had the difference of about 4,000 between the two leading candidates and the number of registered voters in the areas where election was canceled is 3,000 plus, even if all the remaining over 3,000 candidates vote for the runner up it would still not be enough, then you go ahead with the election to be conclusive because if you go back to conduct election in those areas will be meaningless, so that is strictly the condition for an election to be inconclusive.
Excerpts:
Sir, During the last Governorship election in Osun State, the Returning Officer declared the election inconclusive due to Orolu, Osogbo, Ife North and Ife South Local Governments election crises. According to the electoral act, what can make an election Inconclusive?
Thank you very much. When there is violence during the conduct of an election in an area and by the time you are doing your computation and the number of registered voters in those polling units where elections were marred is greater than the difference between the first and second candidates, you would assume that if those people had voted, the results could have gone either way, either for the leading candidate or the runner up. so because of that, you can say the election is inconclusive. It is possible to have singular scenario where an election can be conclusive when there is violence in a particular polling unit like in Osun State last year, if we have had the difference of about 4,000 between the two leading candidates and the number of registered voters in the areas where election was canceled is 3,000 plus, even if all the remaining over 3,000 candidates vote for the runner up it would still not be enough, then you go ahead with the election to be conclusive because if you go back to conduct election in those areas will be meaningless, so that is strictly the condition for an election to be inconclusive.
The judgment of all the three courts hearing election petition contradicted from the beginning, is it the fault of the judges, INEC or the Political Party?
I would not say it is the fault of the judges because they are learned judges and apparently they differ looked at it from different perspectives for instance at the tribunal there were 3 judges and two of them were in support of PDP and its candidate while the other was in support of APC and its candidate, so when they gave that judgement based on what they felt was right and they also have a minority judgement and any discerning mind that read the minority judgment alone would believe sincerely because when I read it , I just felt like the man has been with us every minute following what we are doing because that was chronicled in his own area because the first judgement they said they canceled 17 different polling units area which has been in the judgement of Supreme Court that you can not cancel but you can ask them to go back to that area to reconduct the election rather than the judge cancelling the results given at those units, so we knew that one has already when we read it because there is no way for them to cancel 17 polling units and the 7 polling units that wronged where they were inconclusive, the judge also said election shouldn’t have been held there but we people that were present saw massive destruction, massive carting away of our materials, some people were even saying it was the returning that cancel the election, no, because it is from the polling unit to the collation centre, to local government before coming to the state level and like I said that if we were having like five thousand (5000) difference between them, the three thousand two hundred registered in those 7 polling units, there wouldn’t have been any problems because we have 353 between them and over 3200 have not voted, so you would rightly believe that if those people have been allowed to vote, it could have gone either way and that is why the minority judgment at the Tribunal said because there were problem in those 7 polling units and little margin between them, there should be rerun of the election in order to add the results for the announcement of the winner and that was what happened at the Supreme Court where the judge upheld the tribunal minority judgment that is proper because this is not the first time we would have inconclusive elections, it has started since 2010 or 2011 from Bayelsa, Kogi, and just of recent in Taraba States, this is the first time I would conduct election that is inclusive as Resident Electoral Commissioner but I witnessed some before, so both the Appeal, Supreme gave the right judgement in line with and the minority judgment in tribunal Courts.