During governorship elections held on Saturday 9th March, 2019, out of the 29 states where the elections were held across Nigeria, elections are yet to be concluded in seven (7) of the states. Six (6) of the seven (7) states, elections were formally declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The seventh state (Rivers State) electoral activities were brought to a halt by INEC after there were series of violence in the state during the elections and INEC has at the moment not come out with a clear statement on when electoral processes will resume again in the state.
Out of the six states where elections were declared inconclusive, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) claimed to be leading in five of the states which are Sokoto, Kano, Benue and Adamawa states while the All Progressive Congress (APC) was leading in one state which is Plateau State.
The fact that the PDP was leading in majority of the states where the INEC has declared the elections inconclusive, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, has accused the INEC of being partisan and working hand in hand with the APC to undermine the success of the PDP at the polls. He accused INEC of sacrificing its independence to the APC by unreasonably declaring elections inconclusive instead of outrightly declaring the PDP winners.
The fears of the PDP may not be far from their experience in last year’s election held in Osun where the PDP was leading the APC until INEC declared the elections inconclusive. During the first rounds of elections the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, won with majority votes of 254,698 votes while Gboyega Oyetola of the APC came a close second with 254,345 votes. The election was declared inconclusive because the margin of 354 votes which the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke was leading was lower than the cancelled votes which were 3,498 in seven polling units in the state, hence the re-run.
During the rerun of the election, the PDP accused the government of the ruling party, APC of militarization of the seven polling units and deliberately denied access of journalists and observers to the polling units. They also accused the APC of using armed thugs to determine who voted in some of the units during the rerun election. The PDP also indicted INEC of going ahead to declare Gboyega Oyetola of the APC winner of the election after the election ended with the APC candidate scoring a total of 255,505 votes while the PDP candidate scored a total of 255,023 votes irrespective of the fact that the election was condemned by international and local observers.
The Osun state case study of inconclusive election is obviously one of the many reasons why the PDP is wary of the numerous cases of inconclusive elections in states where their candidates were reported to have being leading and accused INEC is trying to undermine the success of the PDP.
