From Joseph Obukata, Warri
The governorship candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) in Delta state, Comrade Sunny Ofehe, has described the last Saturday governorship and state assembly elections in the state as mere selection of highest bidder.
Ofehe made the declaration in a statement made available to newsmen in Warri, saying that Deltans quest to elect a true leader was truncated through massive buying of votes.
According to him, the governorship seat was sold to the highest bidder in a process that was supervised and endorsed by Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).
He lamented that willing voters were disenfranchised and denied right to free choice of their political leaders by widespread thuggery, vote buying, concoction of figures at collation centres and the likes.
The YPP guber candidate accused chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the All Progressives Congress, APC, of allegedly conniving with INEC to perpetrate various electoral frauds.
Ofehe, however described the election as a “charade, caricature and show of shame. This sad scenario in the elections has reinforced the tag on the nation as “fantastically corrupt”, he added.
He said that there are substantial amount of evidence to expose the tremendous fraud that took place across polling units and wards in each of the 25 local government councils in the state.
The environmental-political activist said that instead of INEC to keep wasting tax-payers money with false hope given to the masses that they’ll elect their leaders, it better for INEC to advertise the elective positions in the media and open a bidding process for the highest bidders to be announced.
The statement further reads; “After assurances by the electoral umpire, INEC, gruelling campaigns by various parties and debates all of which raised the consciousness and hopes of the people for a better election, influence of money owing to weaponisation of poverty in the land played unfortunate role in the elections. Elective positions therefore largely went to the highest bidder. This is not the democracy Nigeria truly wants. This is not the democracy I decided to participate in. Our democracy, indeed, failed to evolve one notch higher! Sad!
“With governance thrown to incapable hands, the economy of our dear Delta State will more likely bleed in the wilderness in the next four years.
“We must not continue like this. We must not continue to sweep under the carpet the fraud that has characterised our elections. As an environmental-political activist, I will, everywhere in the globe I chance to, continue to shame these polls that were less than free, less than credible and hence unfair. It is hoped that this approach has the beneficial effect of deepening our electoral system.
“Barring the election irregularities, I am the most capable, credible, competent and generally acceptable candidate for the Delta State Governorship seat. As noted here earlier, I intend to challenge the entire process in my own way.
“I thank those who sincerely supported and worked tirelessly with me in the cause of the campaigns. We are the true WINNERS because we contended with the status quo and made sure we got to the finish line. We must take pride in our issue-based campaigns and doggedness to the end.
“I love my country Nigeria and my dear Delta State! I believe we would see, soonest, our dream Delta State!”, the statement added.