The pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere has declared that contrary to the announcement made by the electoral body the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi was the winner of the just-concluded presidential election.
According to the foremost Yoruba group, the declaration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was illegal.
The group emphasised that the Presidential and National Assembly elections fell short of the requirements of the Election Act 2022, as amended.
In particular, the organization claimed that INEC flagrantly broke the rules of elections in accordance with the terms of pertinent legislation governing the country’s electoral process.
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This was stated in a communique the organization released at the end of a Special General Meeting held at the Isanya-Ogbo residence of the party’s leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, who insisted that the election’s conduct had violated both the Election Act and the Constitution.
The group said in a communiqué signed by Chief Sola Ebiseni, its Secretary-General, that the electoral umpire’s willful disregard for the law encouraged electoral brigandage at the polling units.
‘That the results of the lawful votes at the election available to the Afenifere through credible sources confirm that His Excellency Peter Gregory Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, won the said election, and we thus support his decision to challenge the contrary declaration by the INEC.
‘That the General Meeting hereby denounces in strong terms and dissociates Afenifere from any congratulatory message in the name of the organisation or howsoever to any candidate as illegally declared by the INEC.’
Africa Today News, New York reports that the declaration by the sociocultural group has continued to generate a lot of controversies.