Offa rerun: Go to court, CP tells APC Commissioner of Police in Kwara State, Mr. Agboola Oshodi-Glover, on Sunday told protesting members of the All Progressive Congress to go to court for redress rather than resorting to actions that are capable of compromising public peace. Members of the APC had been engaged in protests over alleged fraud in the rerun election in the Offa Local Government Area in which the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission said the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Segun Olanipekun, was the winner. The APC has however insisted that its chairmanship candidate, Mr. Saheed Popoola, won the election and called for the declaration of what it called the authentic results. The CP spoke during a meeting with leaders of APC in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital. Oshodi-Glover advised APC to stop further protests, saying that the peaceful procession might be hijacked by hoodlums. He said, “I want to beg you, as you have been peaceful, you should be peaceful. As your rally went on peacefully, some people may not be as peaceful as you had been “We are hearing that some people are saying that they want to come out to confront you people. There is intellectual way to handle this thing. Tribunal is here. I want to appeal that you take that step.” “I have spoken to the major actors in the political circle in Kwara State regarding the re-run election in Offa. We have appealed to them to take legal means as the only solution to solving their grievances and desist from going to the streets in protest. “Going through the constitutional means will best suit their demand. For whatever thing they want to address, they can make use of their secretariat or any of the halls in the town. We don’t want to enforce peace by force. If this protest continues, other parties may take this as an advantage to destabilise the peaceful co-existence in the state by carrying out reprisal attack on them. We don’t want to experience what had happened in Egypt where scores of people were killed. We don’t want demonstration anymore in Kwara State. “The court never failed in Oyo, Osun, Ekiti and other states where there was controversy. I will implore you to also follow those footsteps.” Earlier, an APC chief, Dr. Sa’ad Omoiya, had reiterated that the party won the election but that KWASIEC announced Olanipekun. He said the protest was one of the peaceful means the party adopted to make public their belief that they were robbed of their victory. “We will go back to reflect on this issue and see how to help the police maintain a peaceful and harmonious relationship in the state. This matter is something that has gone beyond us at the state level and national level. In fact, it is now an issue of international debate. We commend the CP for his efforts so far,” Omoiya said. The KWASIEC had in a radio announcement said Olanipekun won the election, having purportedly scored 35,937 votes while Popoola was said to have polled 20,161 votes. Olanipekun was also announced to have won in all the wards in the LG. But the APC insisted that the signed result sheet obtained at the collation centre showed that it trounced the PDP in 11 of the 12 wards. It added that PDP won only in Igboodun Ward, saying that in all, APC scored 11,526 as against PDP’s 4,668
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 07:59:33 +0000
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