A candidate for an election to the office of Governor of a state shall be deemed to have been duly elected where there being two or more candidates- (a) has the highest number of votes cast at the election, and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each at least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the state – Sec 79(2), 1999 Constitution of FRN
Emmanuel Ukudolo l Monday, September 23, 2018
OSOGBO, Osun, Nigeria – The September 22 governorship election in Osun State has come and gone with the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) in clear lead based on results released by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC). According to INEC, PDP scored 254, 698, APC scored 254,345 votes while SDP scored 128, 049, followed by ADP with 49, 726 votes.
But INEC’s Returning Officer, Professor Joseph Adeola Foape refused to declare winner but ordered for re-run on Thursday, September 27, 2018.
He said there were incidents in about 7 units which includes ballot box snatching, inability of card reader to function, over-voting, destruction of result sheets and incident of abscondment by electoral officers.
According to him, “the difference bewteen the leading parties is 353 votes while votes in units were results were cancelled are 3,498 hence unfortunately, it is not possible for me the returning officer to declare anybody as a clear winner of this election of the first ballot”, Returning Officer, Professor Joseph Adeola Foape said. Without being specific, he said his action is in line with the Electoral Act 2010.
But I have glanced through the Electoral Act 2010, and I have not been able to see any area in support of the action of the learnered professor, showing he acted in his personal interest without the backing of any known law.
For example, Section 69 and 70 of the Electoral Act made quite clear that in “an election to the office of the President or Governor, whether or not
contested and in any contested election to any other elective office, the result shall be ascertained by counting the votes cast for each candidate
and subject to the provisions of sections 133, 134 and 179 of the Constitution, the candidate that receives the highest number of votes shall be declared elected by the appropriate Returning Officer.
“Where two or more candidates poll equal number of votes being the highest in an election, the Returning Officer shall not return any of the
candidates and a fresh election shall be held for the candidates on a date to be appointed by the Commission“.
In this case, two candidates did not score equal votes to warrant INEC not to return any candidate as winner. I also consulted the relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution, sections 133, 134 and 179 of the constitution which did not in any way support the position of INEC.
Specifically, Section 179 of the 1999 Constitution states inter alia: “A candidate for an election to the office of governor of a state shall be deemed to have been duly elected to such office where being the only candidate nominated for the election.
“(a) He has a majority of Yes votes over No votes cast at the election.(b) He has not less than one quarter of the votes cast of at least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the state, but where the only candidate fails to be elected in accordance with this subsection, then there shall be fresh nominations.
“2 A candidate for an election to the office of Governor of a State shall be deemed to have been duly elected where there being two or more candidates- (a) has the highest number of votes cast at the election, and (b) he has not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each at least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the state.
It is quite clear that the action of INEC in Osun election in failing to declare the winner is a clear violation of both the Electoral Act and the 1999 Constitution, showing that the professor has not acted as a neutral umpire but as an interested party.
The best option left for the PDP will be to approach a Federal High Court for an injuction to restrain the INEC from going ahead with the election, obtain an order compelling INEC to declare winner of the election having acted in breach of both the Electoral Act and the 1999 constitution, a development that seems to have cast aspersion on the intergrity of INEC ahead of the 2019 general election.
NB: This is a personal opinion and has nothing to do with the medium
