The House of Representatives candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), for the Kosofe Federal Constituency in Lagos state, Comrade Waheed Odunuga is poised to seek redress in court over alleged electoral foul play by the INEC and APC in the conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections held on Saturday 25th of February 2023.
In a statement signed by the NNPP Reps candidate in Kosofe Odunuga maintained that the deliberate omission of his party’s lo on the ballot paper was an unpardonable sin which has end up disenfranchising many eligible voters into the constituency.
“ Omission of the name of a political party on the ballot paper is legally fatal since it is meant to be used by the public.
“Most of our members were deliberately prevented from voting as a result of the omitted name. This is a violation of the electoral act of 2022 as amended.
Odunuga insist that the omission is a non-negotiable vice for which he is all out to seek redress through the court, citing the a precedence in a case of NATASHA HADIZA AKPOTI& LOR.vs. INEC& 30RS.[2022] 9 NWLR (Pt.1836) 408-409 at the Supreme court.
In an earlier chat with newsmen after casting his vote, Odunuga note that the polls was also characterised with intimidations of voters and party agents and vote buying by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before, during and after the election.
“There is no denying the fact that vote buying actually took place in the election. It took place before and on the Election Day.
This is not encouraging. In some of the polling units across the Kosofe constituency, the APC and the main opposition party, PDP transferred between N10, 000 and N15, 000 to 15 more people in the polling booths to induce voters.
Also, the candidate of the APC for the House of Representatives in Kosofe Constituency invited INEC adhoc staff to her personnel residence in Magodo, Lagos and gave them food stuffs and requested for their account details. We believe the relevant security institutions need to do the needful” he alleged.
Odunuga also complained about his party’s missing logo on the ballot paper, which according him, adversely affected the number of votes garnered by his party.
He said, “There were pockets of intimidations from the ruling party, the APC across board even before the Election Day.
The voters and our party agents were intimidated at the polls. It was indeed a very sad situation. It was sad that the logo of our party, the NNPP was missing on the ballot paper and this actually had negative effects on the number of votes gathered.
The people never knew we were on the ballot. It was when we got wind of this that we started sensitising the people about what had happened telling them what to look out for.
I disagree that Lagos is a one party state. It is just that we haven’t got a credible candidate from other parties and that is why it was like that. APC is not a party of God that cannot be defeated.
In the last election, the party was defeated in some party of Lagos. The reason they keep winning is because there is no credible and popular candidate to contest with the party but I am optimistic that if INEC and other security agencies do their job honestly and diligently, this is an election we are going to win.
But if the APC win this election, it actually means a foul play. The APC is not popular among the people because if they are popular, they will not be getting less than 7 per cent of the registered voters voting for them.
We have seen situations whereby people are scared to come out to vote because of fear of attack. If they can actually come out and vote, APC will definitely lose. If the APC should win then there are sharp moves by the party.”