The battle for the Ekiti State government house and who takes over from the incumbent Governor Fayemi will soon become a matter before the Ekiti State Election Tribunal.

This is as two political parties that fielded candidates in the election has now formally confirmed that they will be challenging the result of the Saturday Ekiti State governorship election at the Tribunal.

In the final results announced by the Chief Returning Officer for INEC, Professor Kayode Adebowale, the Vice Chancellor of University of Ibadan, the APC candidate was declared the winner with victory in 15 local government areas of the state.

The APC candidate pulled a total of 187,057 votes to defeat his closest rival, Chief Segun Oni of the SDP who scored 82,211.

While the PDP`s Bisi Kolawole came third with total votes tally of 67,457 votes, with victory in only one local government areas in the state.

The Social Democratic Party (SDP) which fielded former governor Segun Oni and Action Democratic Party (ADP), which fielded a female candidate, Kemi Elebute-Halle have both rejected the INEC official result and outcome of the election.

They have also vowed to challenge the result at the Election Tribunal. The spokesperson of the Segun Oni Campaign Organization in a swift reaction on Saturday after the announcement of the result by INEC described it as “unacceptable”. He said that his party would be meeting to decide on the next step in relation to the outcome.

On Sunday, while speaking on a political program on television from Ado-Ekiti, which was monitored by Clariform reporter, he confirmed that his party will be challenging the outcome of the result.

Also speaking on Sunday in Ado-Ekiti the collation agent of the SDP, Owoseni Ajayi, reiterated this rejection of the result by the party, while adding that the SDP will be approaching the Tribunal to challenge the result

He said: “We are rejecting the results because the election was characterised by violence and intimidation of voters,”

“As a result, we will definitely challenge the outcome of this result in the court of law for posterity and generations coming to know that when conducting elections, you must follow the rules and procedures.”

Similarly, the Action Democratic Party (ADP ) in a statement signed by the state chairman, Femi Eponlolaye, in the state capital, maintained the same allegations by the SDP that the Ekiti governorship election was characterized by intimidation of opponent`s supporters and vote buying.

NOTABLE QUOTES

The ADP statement reads in part:

“The victory of Mr Biodun Oyebanji in the just concluded governorship election ordinarily would have been accepted by me, if the election had not been fraught by electoral malpractices,” she said.

“In spite of various sensitisation programmes and media publicity against vote buying, the APC, PDP and SDP actually promoted and encouraged corruption, both at the grassroots and the state levels.

“Though the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has pronounced Oyebanji as the winner of this election, I, Kemi Elebute-Halle, hereby reject the result of this election.

“It was not credible, neither was it free nor fair. His APC thugs destabilised my strongholds across the state, attacked our members, snatched and destroyed our ballot boxes.

“All those votes, including those obtained by PDP, will be cancelled at the tribunal.

“I want to use this medium to urge my followers not to be discouraged about the outcome of the election. We shall continue to promote our great party, the ADP.”

BACKGROUND & TAKEAWAY

The result of the Ekiti governorship election released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been has been backed by a notable Civil Society Organisation, YIAGA Africa, which claims that the results tally with their estimate of the figures which the agents of the organisation independently collated from the polling bullets during the Saturday election.