By Seyi Fadoro
People’s Democratic Party, PDP, House of Representatives candidate in Ajeromi-Ifelodun Federal Constituency, Mrs. Rita Orji has raised the alarm over move by electoral officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to perpetrate large-scale electoral malpractice to favour the candidate of All Progressives Party, APC, for House of Representatives in the February 23, election.
Orji made the allegations while speaking with Newsmen at the weekend, on the outcome of the Presidential and National Assembly elections in the area, which she claimed was fraught with electoral manipulation.
According to her: “The electorate of Ajeromi-Ifelodun being peace-loving and democracy-abiding citizens, participated in the National Assembly and presidential general elections conducted on 23rd February, 2019. The people exercised their civic duties in voting for the candidates of their choice. The election was relatively peaceful except for a few numbers of polling units where there was violence, attacks on the voters, electoral officials and in some cases security agents.”
“I want to salute the courage of the electorate who turned out in large number to cast their votes at their various polling units. Majority of them waited behind to monitor the process and waited until their votes were counted, announced, recorded and published at their polling units.”
“Having played their parts, it was expected that the electoral officials led by the Electoral Officer will conclude their parts in strict compliance with the Electoral Act and other relevant laws but to my dismay, the Electoral Officer, Mr. Adelaja unilaterally embarked on a large-scale electoral malpractice with intention to favour the candidate of All Progressives Party for House of Representatives in the election. I appreciate the selfless service of several electoral officials who were diligent in carrying out their duties.”
“However, the same could not be said about Mr. Adelaja who is the Electoral Officer of the LGA. He flagrantly set aside electoral guidelines and shamelessly indulged in electoral malpractices in a bid to please his ‘paymaster’ who bribed him with sums running into millions of naira to pervert the outcome of the election of the House of Representatives.”
Mrs. Orji noted also alleged that the electoral malpractices of Mr. Adelaja such as outright cancellation of results, deliberate alteration of figures among other forms of manipulation.
“Results of 14 polling units in one ward were outrightly and unilaterally annulled by Adelaja, hence, abrogating the power that only an election tribunal has. There are several he did cancelled. Also, there was a deliberate alteration of my election figures, figures that have been duly recorded and published from polling units while arbitrarily allocating and inflating the figures of the APC candidates for House of Representatives.”
She added that Mr. Adelaja assured APC candidate’s ‘agent’ of a re-run while collation was still on-going at about 10pm on Saturday, 23rd February, 2019 as a payback for the huge sum (Fifteen million naira) he had collected to swing the result in his ‘paymaster’s favour.
“He muddled up the whole electoral process to ensure that the clear winner is denied the victory. He is bent on trading the people’s mandate for pecuniary gain. Finally, he is proposing a re-run to enable him perfect the dirty job he has started to favour his paymaster,” she said. Orji however, concluded that, “We shall not dance to his whims and caprices. The details of the electoral fraud perpetrated by Mr. Adelaja and his collaborators are contained in our petition. I hereby appeal to the peace-loving and democracy-passionate people of Ajeromi Ifelodun, that we shall have our mandate back. Let us purse it peacefully.”