Criticism trails APC’s clean sweep of Oyo LG poll

The All Progressives Congress(APC) has won all the chairmanship seats in the 33 local government councils and the 35 local council development areas in the state.

The party also won the councillorship seats in the 610 wards in the state in the local government election held on Saturday.

Announcing the results in Ibadan on Sunday, John Ajeigbe, chairman of the Oyo State Independent Electoral Commission (OYSIEC), described the election as free, fair and credible.

He commended residents of the state for conducting themselves in an orderly manner and for complying with rules and regulations during the exercise.

“It is hoped that this kind of maturity exhibited before and during the conduct of the election will be sustained so that good democratic values would be further achieved at the grassroots,” he said.

Adebayo Shittu, minister of communications, described the election as a charade.

Shittu said two legal suits against the election would soon decide if the exercise was valid.

“The council poll is a travesty of justice and a violation of the spirit of democracy. It is self-serving and aimed specifically at the gubernatorial primaries of the party,” he said.

Shittu said that the two pending cases on the election were filed in Abuja and Ibadan.

He said: “I am happy that we all are in the state and saw that the generality of our people ignored the election, despite the fact that we in the Unity Forum did not instruct people to do so.

“We will not sleep, rest on our oars, be cowed nor submit to injustice or impunity. We will not.”

Sunday Igbinsola, secretary of Accord party in the state, described the election “as a show of shame”.

He said many stakeholders within even the ruling APC had distanced themselves from the exercise.

“I will simply say here that the election was a failure and the APC government will definitely return taxpayers money when it is time to answer questions,” Igbinsola said.

The Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) in the state, on its part, described the poll as “stage-managed fraud”.

According to Kolapo Oladapo, chairman of SPN, the name and logo of his party appeared on the ballot papers in spite of the fact that the candidate was denied nomination form.

“This is a monumental fraud against our party and every one that believes in open democratic process,” Oladapo said.

NAN reports that the only female contender, Fatimoh Gildado (APC), won the championship seat of Orire north LCDA with 5,787 votes.

Olajuwon Alao-Akala, son of a former governor of Oyo state, Adebayo Alao-Akala, won the chairmanship seat of Ogbomoso local government council with 9,026 votes.