By Lekan Okunuga

The media has, lately, been awashed with all forms of narratives on the conduct of the governorship election in Ogun, with the electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), failing to live up to its expectations in certain areas. Many are of the view that, while INEC has had to improve on its internal processes, through the introduction of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) and the result viewing portal (IREV), there are still some areas of improvement.

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) had, shortly after the presidential election, commended INEC over the introduction of its newest technology which actually worked optimally.

However, certain loopholes were still observed, as is common with any developing system.

The Ogun State scenario calls for questioning here. INEC should be  faulted for announcing the results of the poll and declaring a winner rather than declaring it inconclusive due to the number of cancelled votes which is far higher than the margin between the top two leading contenders in that election.

Isn’t that so simple? How would INEC go ahead to declare a winner in an election where the incumbent governor, Dapo Abiodun, was only taking the lead with a mere 13,912, with cancelled votes put at 33,750?

Dapo Abiodun of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared winner, having scored 276,295 votes as against the 262,383 polled by Ladi Adebutu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The Electoral Act 2022 is unambiguous about what should be the outcome of the election. The stipulation is that, “Where the difference between the winner and the loser is less than cancelled vote, the results should be inconclusive.”

Suffice to say that INEC’s action in that election is nothing but a broad day light robbery which calls for questioning and must not be allowed to see the light of the day.

Every right-thinking Nigerian and proud sons and daughters of Ogun State, for that matter, must reject this electoral shenanigans as orchestrated by the thieving actors in the capacity of INEC and Governor Dapo Abiodun.

The inconclusiveness of that election remains uncompromisingly sacrosanct.

Lekan Okunuga writes from Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.