Protesting members and supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday blocked the entrance to the premises of the Kwara State Independent Electoral Commission (KWSIEC) in Ilorin, the state capital.

The protesters, drawn largely from the seven local government areas of Kwara South and five from Kwara Central, were protesting against the alleged fraud committed against them during a local government election rerun in Offa on August 31, 2013.

The KWSIEC, which conducted the election, had declared the chairmanship and councillorship candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the winners of the poll, although it is yet to make the breakdown of the results as collated in each polling unit or ward public.

The blockage of the KWSIEC headquarters lasted for about three hours. The Muslims among them observed their Jumaat in front of the commission’s office on Fate Road, opposite the Federal Secretariat in the metropolis.

Yesterday’s rally, the third within the week, took off from the former Congress for Progressive Change (CPC)’s office on Offa Road.

At the KWSIEC office, they stood outside the gates as the gates were locked, with security mounted by the police who, however, did not disrupt the protest.

They were led by their leaders, including the two members of the state House of Assembly produced by the party, Hassan Oyeleke and Tope Olayoonu; the party chairmanship candidate at the poll, Saheed Popoola, and former caretaker chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Sola Iji.

They said they would not stop the protest until the electoral body released what they called the authentic result of the election.

The APC, which claimed that the collated result of each of the 12 wards of the council showed that it won in 11 wards while PDP won in one, faulted the result announced by the electoral commission on the radio and asked it to, in the manner stated by the law, release the official result with its breakdown.

The protesters, who brandished brooms, the logo of their party, condemned the KWSIEC for alleged perpetration of fraud with the result it announced and expressed their insistence on the release of the ‘authentic’ result.

Iji and Popoola told reporters that the protest at the head office of the KWSIEC would continue until the electoral body released the result of the election as demanded.

“We are demanding for the declaration of the official and authentic result, and we will not stop this protest until they gave us our result,” Iji said.

Popoola, who said the protesters would occupy the KWSIEC office until the result was released, said the party had lost confidence in the electoral commission and lent his voice to the calls by some stakeholders for the commission’s dissolution.

The Chairman of the Kwara State House of Assembly’s Committee on Public Accounts, Hassan Oyeleke, said: “We are doing this rally to keep sensitising our people about the brazen robbery of electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Offa Local Government. This is just a civil way of bringing our grievances to the attention of the whole world.

“It is unfortunate that what the new PDP is fighting against is what it is doing to other people. They are talking of justice and the Bamanga Tukur leadership not being fair, but they are doing worse here at this level.”

Alhaji Oyeleke called for the dissolution of KWSIEC as presently constituted, saying that people had lost confidence in the commission.

He added: “We don’t have confidence in KWSIEC again. When they brought the commission’s chairman, Dr Uthman Ajidagba, to the floor of the House for screening, I was one of those who spoke well about him because we were classmates in secondary school.

“Then, he was an Alfa, and for somebody who has a Ph.D in Islamic Studies, I assumed that he would be above board.

“Those of us who attended the same school with him are disappointed.”

He described the PDP disclaimer of its councillorship candidate in Shawo South West Ward, Mr. Afolabi O. Jimoh, as a lie.

He said: “They are not right. And if a liar says anything, don’t believe him. The evidence before the world are very clear. KWSIEC displayed names of candidates for the election and Mr. Afolabi O. Jimoh was cleared.

“In a rerun election, you can’t change your candidate without the knowledge of KWSIEC or other parties. The procedure for changing a candidate is very clear. You either change a candidate because he is dead or write a letter that he is not part of the party again. All those things were not done.

“The boy is a bona fide member of the PDP. The boy has conscience. That is why he openly disowned the victory ascribed to him. We are very proud of him because he shows the qualities people from our area are made up of.

“The PDP disclaimer on him is in furtherance of so many lies they have been telling. Up till now, the KWSIEC and the so-called councillors don’t know the scores they had in each ward.

“Now they came to KWSIEC office at Offa and carted away the ballot boxes with the aim of starting to print ballot papers in Ilorin to make up the number. We challenge them to let each of the PDP councilors announce what he polled in his ward.

“The new PDP government in the state is intolerant of opposition in spite of the fact that we have been very tolerant of them. I am a sort of the leader of the opposition in the state House of Assembly and also the chair of public accounts. I have access to a lot of accounting information of the government and we never divulge any. We have shown that tolerance and maturity to them.

“This is one of the dirtiest governments you can talk of when it comes to management of money. Kwara is passing through harrowing experience not because enough money is not coming from the federation account but because the money does not get to Kwara and Kwarans.”

Meanwhile, the APC in Kwara state has said that the PDP robbed it of its victory in the August 31 local government election rerun in Offa, Offa Local Government Area, to discourage the party’s supporters ahead of the October 26 council poll.

In a statement, Spokesperson of APC in Kwara South, Prince Shuaib Olanrewaju, said: “We also believe that they have resorted to this daylight robbery to intimidate the good people of Kwara South and cause disillusionment and submission in order not to approach the incoming local government election with all seriousness.

´We urge the people of Kwara South not to be intimidated or discouraged because useful lessons have been learnt and the lesson shall serve as a guide towards the preparation for other elections in the state.

´We want to assure the good people of Offa that this stolen mandate will be restored in due time and the six local governments will compliment their victory with electoral success. We the remaining six local governments do promise to stand by the people of Offa through their trying times.

“We members of Kwara South APC and the good people of Kwara South wish to commend the people of Offa Local Government Area for their steadfastness as true progressives and a shining example to all the remaining six local government areas in Kwara South.

“We sympathise with them on the daylight robbery with arrogance and impunity of their well deserved victory at the local government poll. We therefore in line with all others reject the result of Offa Local Government rerun election announced by the Chairman of KWSEIC, who in the first instance is not constitutionally empowered to announce the result.

“We hereby call on all security agencies to please call the runaway Offa local government returning officer to come and officially announce the result as generated, collated and signed by all the 12 wards of Offa local government polling agents and security officers at the polling centres and the wards.

“We believe that the PDP in the state blatantly committed this electoral fraud to prove a point that their ‘leader’ is still in control of the political superiority in Kwara State, to enable him negotiate in the new party he wants to go.

“We want to use this opportunity to tell the whole world that the PDP, its so-called “leader” and government of Kwara State have been totally rejected by the good people of Kwara South and that they can only manipulate their way with only the corrupt ridden state Electoral Commission.

“We also call on the Nigeria Broadcasting Commission (NBC), the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigeria Guild of Editors to investigate the role of Radio Kwara in the announcement of the illegal result. We therefore call on Radio Kwara to announce the ward by ward result as collated by the returning officer, which ought to form the basis of a credible result.

“We hereby express our strong lack of confidence in the KWASIEC led by Dr. Ajidagba, and that he can not conduct any free and fair elections.”