The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has insisted that it would challenge the outcome of the governorship election held in Kogi State on the 11th of November, 2023.
According to SDP, it has noticed significant anomalies that affected the election’s result in some voting centers that should have produced a different winner than Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and that Murtala Ajaka of the SDP ought to have been declared the winner.
The party which called on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to recognize its governorship candidate Ajaka as the legitimately elected state governor, noted that it is gathering evidence for a legal dispute with the APC.
The Herald recalls that INEC declared that the APC candidate gathered 446,237 votes, surpassing the total votes received by the SDP candidate who came in second with 259,052 votes.
The National Chairman of the party, Shehu Gabam, while addressing newsmen on Friday, said, “We in SDP disagree, we are sad, we are disappointed, at this level of civilization, this level of developing our democracy, that such level of brazen disregard for the rule of law is still accepted. We will not leave it, we will challenge it, and we are putting all our facts together.
“We have told the President this will be the first test run for his integrity, I don’t know if we are moving into a one-state system, we are following some of the development, we are following some of the judicial pronouncements.
“In this same country that we fought for democracy, in this country in 1999 some of the best politicians were arrested and sent to prison for the restoration of democracy. From 1999 to date our democracy has produced more than grandchildren, so, we are not learning.
“Nigeria is the biggest democracy in Africa, we are on a very fragile stage. We are having the worst situation; we are having impunity as the order of the day, where INEC admitted their officers have compromised, they demanded the arrest of those officers, they have their details, and they deployed them, but the good thing is that we have not seen security officers compromising, especially in Kogi State.
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“We are not cowards, we exhibited that capacity and we can never be cowed, this country belongs to all of us. The President said several times that the ball stopped at his own desk, but the ball is still at his own desk. The National Security Adviser said to make very sound pronouncements, that boost our morale and confidence, he said that there wouldn’t be cheating acts or malpractices that would not be condoned. His own personnel will be there monitoring the events.”