From Bamigbola Gbolagunte
Some political parties under the auspices of the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC) in Osun State have expressed their decision to boycott the planned local government election in the state.
Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSIEC) had fixed local government election in the state for February, 2024.
But IPAC at a press conference on Monday declared that all the political parties that make up the council will boycott the election, alleging that the OSIEC chairman, Mr Hassim Abioye is a card carrying member of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.
The chairman of IPAC in the state, Pastor Victor Akande alleged that the OSIEC chairman was doing everything possible to favour the PDP in the forthcoming local government election.
He listed the political parties involved in the decision to include Action Alliance, African Democratic Congress, Accord Party, Social Democratic Party, African Action Congress, New
Nigeria Peoples Party, Allied Peoples Party and the Peoples Redemption Party.
Others are the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Zenith Labour Party, Action Democratic Party, Action Peoples Party, Labour Party, Boot Party, National Rescue Movement and Young Peoples Party.
“When Governor Ademola Adeleke submitted the name of a card-carrying member of his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Hassim Abioye to the rubber-stamped House of Assembly for confirmation as the Chairman, Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSIEC) on November, 2023, we vehemently kicked against it,” he recalled.
He said “our position then, as Osun chapter of IPAC, was that Abioye is not legally fit to conduct free, fair and credible local government election in Osun State. We opposed the brazen imposition of Abioye as OSIEC umpire as he was Adeleke’s Senior Special Assistant on Legal Matters then.”
Akande alleged that “we have reliably gathered that Abioye has perfected plans to use PDP members as Electoral Officers during the election which we all know what it means.”
According to him “Abioye’s intention is to trap us into conducting our parties’ primary elections
without disclosing the amount each party will pay which will, of course, lead to efforts in futility after announcing exorbitant fee.”
“We expected up to date information from Abioye as been done by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) but reverse is the case as
we always have information about Osun local government election from PDP. We found it convenient to say that the PDP-led administration in the state is intentionally creating avenues for crisis all over so as to scare our people away from the forthcoming council election as only a secured mind will have courage of going out to vote for his/her choice,” he added.