Osun Election: PDP Claims Victory, APC Disagrees

Deji Elumoye and Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo 

There were claims and counter claims about the outcome of Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State with the two main political parties disagreeing over the winner of the poll.

While the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) claimed its candidate in the off season poll, Senator Ademola Adeleke, won the poll, the All Progressives Congress (APC) declared that it was early for any party to claim victory in an election whose result is yet to be declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In claiming electoral victory in the governorship poll, Osun state chapter of the PDP emphasized 

 that collated results from the polling units confirmed PDP’s emerging victory at the poll.

In a statement issued in Osogbo on Saturday evening, the Caretaker Chairman of the party in Osun state, Dr Akindele Adekunle, declared that the party has secured majority as well as more than two third spread across the 30 local governments and area office.

The party noted that the victory of the party at the poll is a product of mass mobilisation and grand coalition of people of Osun state against bad governance and insensitive leadership.

While thanking people of Osun state for endorsing and affirming Ademola Adeleke’s governorship bid, the party sternly warns against any attempt to tamper with the result of the election.

“We want to assert that Ademola Adeleke has won this election overwhelmingly going by results at our disposal. We warn against any plot by some agents of chaos to doctor the results. We specifically call on the Electoral commission to watch fifth columnists within its fold who may have been contracted for hatchet job. Osun people have decided and their votes must be respected”, the statement noted.

The party specifically called attention of the commission to a paid agent of the state government who is presently working round the clock to tamper with the results, vowing that any attempt to subvert the will of Osun people will be strongly resisted.

Reacting to the PDP statement, the Director General of the Campaign Council of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola’s re-election, Senator Ajibola Basiru, described as irresponsible the claim by the PDP that it has won the election which result is still being collated as we speak.

In a release issued in Osogbo on Saturday evening, Basiru noted that the claim by the PDP was capable of setting Osun on fire. He, therefore, warned the PDP to desist from making a frivolous and unsubstantiated claim about an election, which, as we speak, voting is still going on in some areas.

He equally called on the security agencies to take appropriate action in dealing decisively with the peddlers of this false claim as they are setting the stage for violence and chaos.

According to him: “It has come to our knowledge that the PDP in a statement is already claiming victory for an election whose result is yet to be declared. We are not surprised at their claim because we know their antics. 

“Going by the result so far declared, there was no way PDP could lay claim to any victory. This is more so that in one of the Local Governments where the PDP candidate hails voting is still going on as we speak. 

“Therefore, the PDP’s claim is tantamount to standing logic on its head. We appeal to our supporters and sympathisers in Osun and across the country to remain calm in the face of this obvious provocation. 

“While we won’t do what the desperate people in the opposition PDP did by usurping the powers of INEC, we are however confident that with the positive results from the field at our disposal, the people’s support for Gov Oyetola will ultimately give him victory when the authority legally empowered to announce election results does so and he is declared Governor-elect”