The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission to charge the Deputy Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kolapo Olusola, for election violence.
The APC’s call followed his alleged directive to his security aide to shoot an APC member, Jide Owolabi, in Ikere-Ekiti during Saturday’s presidential and National Assembly elections.
It also asked INEC to cancel the election result in Ire-Ekiti over allegation of violence and ballot snatching.
Reacting to the two incidents, the Publicity Secretary of the APC in Ekiti State, Taiwo Olatubosun, said in a statement that the two incidents were well plotted as strategic plan by the Peoples Democratic Party to have undue advantage to win the ballot.
Olatubosun alleged that the deputy governor’s action in the Ikere-Ekiti incident was a reckless display of lawlessness and flagrant abuse of power by to intimidate the opposition for advantage at the poll.
He said: “What happened in Ikere-Ekiti was a pre-meditated incident to cow the opposition to submission. We had earlier raised the alarm to the plan by top officials of Governor Ayodele Fayose’s administration to employ violence and intimidation to cow our members to enable them manipulate the electoral process. We wrote the security agencies, including both local and international human rights organs, about PDP’s plan. Yesterday incident was just a manifestation of the fears we raised.
“The Deputy Governor cannot claim ignorance of the provisions of the Electoral Act which prohibit movement of government officials from one unit to the other on the election day. He can’t claim ignorance of the law that disallows government officials’ security men to carry weapons during election. It is clear that the deputy governor was not accredited to carry out any election duty, including providing or restoring order where there is violence.
“But he deliberately exercised a reckless abuse of power by leaving his unit with his armed security who he ordered to shoot our member for complaining that his interference in other polling units outside his unit is a breach of the law.”
The APC spokesman said INEC and security agencies should not allow this attempted murder to go un-investigated, while also asking INEC to charge the deputy governor for electoral violence.