The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has rejected the outcome of weekend’s House of Assembly election.
The APC said the exercise fell short of free and fair elections.
It vowed to challenge the result at the tribunal.
The Publicity Secretary of the party in Ekiti State, Taiwo Olatubosun, said in a statement that there were cases of alleged intimidation by policemen and thugs deployed to polling units across the state by Governor Ayo Fayose.
Olatubosun explained that intimidation of opponents began on Friday with many unpleasant reports of state-sponsored intimidation, which accounted for the low turn-out of voters across the state.
He said: “To be specific, APC members were driven to the bush in many towns across the state. They included Efon Alaaye, where PDP thugs did not allow any APC member to participate in accreditation while no party agent was allowed to stay in any of the polling units in the town.
“In Ilupeju-Ijan, APC members alleged that the traditional ruler of the settlement threatened to banish them because of their refusal to vote for the PDP as he decreed. The dwellers in their hundreds left their abodes and could not vote for the party of their choice.”
Also in Ijan-Ekiti, the APC said PDP agents allegedly forced members of the National Youths Service Corps, who worked as adhoc staff, to abandon card readers for manual accreditation in three units.
These were Eyingbe, Ogbontitun and Imekun.
The APC said this allegedly enabled the PDP stuff the ballot box in support of the party’s candidate, who is from the town.
Olatubosun said APC members in Ilejemeje Local Government Area were driven into the bush while thugs and policemen from the Government House did most of the thumb printing of the ballot papers.
He added: “In Ikere Ekiti, thugs and policemen from the Government House did not allow APC members to vote while party agents were driven into the bush. In Afao Ekiti, Fayose’s town, many APC members were not allowed to vote as they were driven into the bush by Fayose’s thugs imported into the town previous night.”
The statement also noted that in Oke-Ako, country home of factional Speaker, Dele Olugbemi, thugs and fake policemen were shooting to scare voters away while they were engaged in illegal thumb printing of ballot papers.
It added: “In Ijero Local Government, it was the same story as thugs chased away voters and carted away voting materials, including ballot boxes, and later thumb-printed papers and deposited them in the ballot boxes, while in Ado Ekiti, policemen attached to the Government House, who were not accredited to monitor election, arrested APC members illegally but were only released when the people protested that they were on illegal mission. They were thereafter detained.”
Olatubosun said the PDP candidate in Irepodun/Ifelodun Constituency Two, Sanya Aladeyelu, was moving from his town Eyio to Esure and Iropora with fake policemen harassing voters while in Itaji, Ayede, Ilemeso and Ilafon, thugs under the command of the candidate of the PDP in Oye Constituency II, raided polling units and carted away ballot papers which they later thumb-printed.
He explained that in Igogo, thugs and policemen from the Government House carted away ballot boxes after shooting into the air to scare away voters.
The people went on protest over this.
“This is the trend in most parts of the state. Added to this is the fact that result sheets were not available in many polling units across the state while voting materials came late. We strongly believe that most of the results of the election were written since Friday at the Government House by Governor Fayose,” he said.
Olatubosun explained that Adedara, who was APC candidate in Ikere Constituency Two, was illegally arrested at his polling unit by a purported mobile police man in mufti.
“This election cannot stand. We will approach the tribunal to question all these illegalities in the election that returned PDP’s candidates as winners,” Olatubosun said.