The bye-election which was conducted in the constituency to fill the vacant seat of the Constituency in the Federal House of Representative was declared inconclusive by the Returning Officer of Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC ), Prof Babatunde Adeyemi .
To this end the Commission organised a stakeholders meeting yesterday at the INEC Headquarters in Akure, the state capital, to decide on when the supplementary election would be held.
The meeting which was presided over by the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Akin Orebiyi had in attendance, the state commissioner of police, Mr Isaac Eke, the state Chairmen and members of all political parties that participated in the election as well as some top INEC officials.
At the end of the day, there was no conclusion on the date for the supplementary election as, except the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Advance Congress of Democrats (ACD) that supported the supplementary election, other parties disagreed on the ground that the electoral laws do not contain such decision for election .
Speaking for the PDP, the Chairman of the party in Ese Odo local government, Mr Solomon Duniyan attributed the problem that occurred in Arogbo Ward 2 where the election was not held to unproactiveness of the security agents to tackle the disruption occasioned by some political hoodlums.
He said the police officers that were manning the polling centres were not harmed to curb the hoodlums that disrupted voting on that day. He also complained that the Naval officers that came with gunboat could not do anything other than to plead with the hoodlums before the hoodlums left the scene.
While calling on INEC to fix a date for the supplementary election, Duniyan said the people of Arogbo Ward 2 should not be disenfranchised and should be allowed to performed their civic duties .
Also, a former member of the state House of Assembly, Hon Kunle Odidi corroborated Duniyan as he commended the INEC and other stakeholders, saying the election was free and fair compare to what used to happen in the previous years in the area.
According to him, the decision of the Commision to conduct a supplementary election was right in other to allow those people, who wanted to vote on that day but could not, the opportunity to vote as required by law.
In contrary, the representative of the ruling Labour Party (LP) at the meeting, Barrister Sola Ebiseni disclosed that his party has challenged the decision of INEC at the federal high court, so the commission should wait on the verdict of the court over the matter .
While objecting the opinion of the PDP speakers, Ebiseni stated that the Electoral Commission had made a mistake by not declaring the LP Candidate the winner of the election, noting that the INEC decision by declaring the election inconclusive was not in line with the Electoral Laws.
In his remarks, the INEC REC, Orebiyi explained that the purpose of the meeting was to rob minds with the politicians and other stakeholders of the election on the appropriate time for the election to be held.
He however explained further that the issue of supplementary election was not in the Electoral Law but it was in the guidelines of INEC which could be used by the commission when situation requires it .
Thanks
