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The candidate of the Labour Party (LP) for Oshodi – Isolo Constituency 2 in the Saturday, March 18 Lagos State House of Assembly election, Ugochukwu Ekwubiri, has rejected the result released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), describing the exercise as a sham. He, however, urged his supporters to remain calm and law abiding.
He said: “The March 18 gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections were a sham. Like the presidential election, it ridiculed the little progress Nigeria has made since 1999 with democracy. In my constituency, Oshodi-Isolo Constituency 2, as early as 6am, thugs had taken over many streets and polling units, preventing voters who did not look like the Yoruba people voting.
“This led to suppression of voters at the polling units. Voters who managed to get to the polling units were driven back home, and beaten or injured where they failed to vote for APC. A lot of voters were wounded. Thugs were on rampage, snatching ballot boxes, where they felt their candidates were losing.
“It happened in Ajao Estate, Jakande Gate, Oke-Afa, and Ago Palace. Agents of our party were not allowed to get to the polling units in many of the wards.
“Despite these intimidation, our party managed to pull through, winning both the governorship and House of Assembly elections in the constituency. The results from our polling agents showed a clear margin of win by our candidates in the elections.
“However, the results were upturned at the collation centres. For the House of Assembly elections, we won at Ajao Estate ward with over 1000 votes, but this was upturned at the collation centre and we were made to lose by the same margin we used to win them at Ajao Estate. At Greenfield Estate, Ago Palace, the result from the estate that we led with over 1800 was dropped there by the polling officers and funny scores recorded. These incidences are enough to cancel out what ever sham winning procured by the APC candidate in this election. There are more evidences like that.
“INEC refused to upload results from many polling units where we had clear majority of the votes. At the collation centres, our agents were shut out of the centres and those who managed to find their way into the centres were intimidated and forced to keep calm. This gave room for the results to be manipulated by the APC.
“We will not allow such manipulations and impunity to stand. We have our facts and we will be taking decisions on what next to do very soon.
“We implore our supporters to remain law-abiding. We will do all that is possible within the ambit of the law to reclaim our mandate. A new Nigeria is possible. We will travel along with the press as we go through these processes.”
