PDP Candidate Denounces Victory in Offa Council Election

A PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) candidate who was said to have been declared winner of the councillorship election in Shawo South West Ward of Offa Local Council in Kwara State, Jimoh Olawale, has denounced his victory in the controversial polls, citing fraudulent practices and the tenets of his religion.

  At a press briefing Wednesday in Offa where members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) protested the results of the election, Olawale said: “I am a bonafide Offa indigene, we are noted for our industry and truth. I did not win that election, it was rigged in my favour. I am a true Moslem who will one day stand before God and give an account of my stewardship.”

  The Kwara State chapter of the APC craved prompt intervention of President Goodluck Jonathan on the outcome of the rerun Offa council election.

  The election held by the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWASIEC) was widely believed to have been won by the APC candidate, Saheed Popoola, but the PDP candidate, Segun Olanipekun, was declared the winner and was on Monday sworn in as the Chairman of Offa Local Council by Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.

  At the press briefing yesterday, the APC chieftains in the council and the candidate of the party said they would use all their God-given conventional skills to regain “our stolen mandate even at the risk of our lives.”

  According to Popoola, the people of the council are aggrieved due to some alleged activities of the KWASIEC during the polls, alleging that the electoral body failed to play the role of an independent umpire thus turning itself into an appendage of the government.

  He wondered why the results of the elections were not declared at the KWSIEC’s branch office at Offa but on the state’s owned radio station, Radio Kwara.’

  While urging the prompt dissolution of KWASIEC due to its alleged bias, Popoola said the APC had petitioned the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) to sanction the Radio Kwara for allowing itself to be used as a medium of announcing “the so called results.”

  Corroborating Popoola’s views, the Coordinator of Kwara South Youth Wing of the APC, Kayode Oyin Zubir, said but for the maturity of the members of the APC and that of their supporters across the state, the radio announcement could have turned the entire state into a turmoil.