LIKE LAGOS, LIKE OFFA!!!

Offa rerun: Protests rock Kwara over election result-PUNCH

Members of the All Progressives Party in Ilorin and Offa Local Government Area of Kwara State on Monday protested against the announcement on radio of the result of the rerun election held in Offa  LG on Saturday, in which the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Segun Olanipekun, was declared  the winner.

 According to the radio announcement and a statement from the Deputy Director, Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission, Mr. Dauda Nurudeen, the PDP’s Olanipekun  polled 35,937 votes against 20,161 reported votes scored by the APC candidate, Mr. Saheed Popoola....
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When I read this story, I laughed and remembered how the ACN did the same thing in Lagos after the 2011 LG poll. The PDP cry blue murder then but the all-powerful ACN shut them out. Retired Justice Fatal Adeyinka, Chairman LASIEC told the PDP to go to court and challenge the result he announced. The party did as directed and got two or three results upturned in its favour by the tribunal. But at the end of the day, the appeal court gave those places back to ACN!!!
I covered an area where the PDP out rightly won the poll. Attempt by the ruling ACN to rig that area was resisted by the people. The story and picture of already thumb-printed ballot papers of ACN inside ghana-must-go sacks and school bags caught with pro-ACNs were published. Still the LASIEC gave the victory to ACN. The returning officer refused to announce the result just like this one in offa had done..... The rest in history.

MY TAKE:

I am neither a PDP nor ACN (now APC) apologist. But I am a supporter of fairness and justice in all circumstances. Just as i blamed and condemned the then ACN for stealing the mandate of the people in Lagos State then, I hereby condemn the PDP in Kwara state for the same offence.

Having said that, what goes round....! I think the APC (ACN) is been paid back in its own coin. If the party thinks it can bully others in its areas of influence and control it should not forget that in other places, it will get brutalised and badly too!!!

In as much as i sympathise with the people of Offa Local Government Area in Kwara State, I make bold to say that the APC (ACN) prepared the foundation for what happened on saturday, far back in Lagos in 2011.

Nevertheless, 'what is bad, is bad.' We should all kick against recurrence of this flagrant usurpation of our mandate by desperate, non-performing and lazy politicians.
This case must not go un-addressed.