INEC declares Kogi West Rerun Senatorial election inconclusive
The Independent National Electoral Commission on Sunday declared as inconclusive the election of the November 16 Kogi West Senatorial District because the margin of win was less than the total cancelled votes.
It said that it will announce a date for the supplementary election.
It stated that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Smart Adeyemi scored a total of 80,118 votes while the Kogi West Senatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Dino Melaye, scored 59,548 votes.
Meanwhile, the PDP Senatorial candidate for Kogi West, Senator Dino Melaye yesterday accused Governor Yahaya Bello and the All Progressives Congress of desperation to hang on to power at all cost.
The Senator who was reacting to the attack on his polling unit by political thugs however said that despite the violence and thuggery that characterised the election, he would win the election.
He claimed that those who led thugs to attack his polling unit have been arrested by the police and has made confessional statement as to who sent them on the errand and are presently in police custody.
Senator Melaye said the attack did not come to him as a surprise as they had already given the police earlier information of possible areas of violence and ballot box snatching.
He claimed that if the election is conducted 100 times, he was confident of emerging winner, saying “if they ae popular, they will not be introducing violence into the process. They cannot achieve what they want through the gun.
“I am calling on the security agencies and INEC to respect their promise that where ever ballot boxes are taken away, it cannot be recorded and that votes in that unit will be cancelled.
“All these areas they have taken ballot boxes and ballot papers away should not be entertained to all at the collation centre. So that only valid votes will count because once a ballot box has been taken away, the integrity of those votes is completely questionable. So, INEC should respect their promise and not allow these election riggers to have their way.
“For me, the election in my unit went over half way before the hoodlums came and started shooting. The bad thing is that one of the boys was shot and was taken to the hospital by the police.
“I am happy they have been apprehended and that our cry that Yahaya Bello wants to be governor by all means is already established. All those arrested are all APC members and they have all confessed who sent them. We must see the end of this matter because we will not allow it to be buried.
“This is not an election. An election that is militarised, an election where ballot papers and ballot boxes are easily carted away by gun men is not an election. If you conduct this election 100 times, I will win.
“If they are popular, they will not introduce violence. All the ballot papers that were scatted were all PDP which show my popularity and acceptability. The difference between me and Smart Adeyemi is the difference between darkness and light.”