Opposition political parties in Lagos State, on Tuesday called for outright cancellation of Saturday’s Local Government Elections in the state, describing the exercise as undemocratic and” a daylight robbery.”
The parties, including the Labour Party, the Young Progressives Party, the African Action Congress, the Action People’s Congress and the Accord Party, made the call at a joint news conference in Lagos.
Speaking during the briefing, the LP chairman in Lagos State, Pastor Dayo Ekong, decried what she termed “orchestrated electoral fraud and brazen bias” in the council elections.
Ekong, whose address was read by her deputy, Mr Olasupo Ajayi, described the exercise as a systematic state-sponsored rape of democracy.
“We witnessed, and documented, widespread irregularities orchestrated by LASIEC.
“We utterly reject the fraudulent results declared by LASIEC in the affected LGAs. We hold Justice Bola Ighile personally responsible for this travesty and the complete collapse of LASIEC’s credibility under her watch.
“Our resolve is unwavering. We are compiling exhaustive evidence of these atrocities. We will explore every legal and constitutional avenue available to challenge this electoral robbery.
We will not rest until justice is served and the will of the people of Lagos is respected. The Labour Party will not allow this daylight robbery to stand unchallenged.”
Similarly, Mr Olusegun Mobolaji of the YPP, described the process that led to the polls as flawed.
Mobolaji said: “The process that led to this poll was full of irregularities and anomalies; even the timetable was contradictory, tedious, choky and unbearable for opposition parties. Some parties got nomination forms from LASIEC two days before the election because of some issues, how can we ascribe credibility to such an election?”
Also, the State APP Chairman and Secretary of IPAC, Mrs Abiola Adeyemi, said that she was nearly beaten by alleged APC thugs in Badagry for complaining over the removal of the APP logo from the ballots in Badagry.
