In a development many never anticipated, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday declared the Osun gubernatorial election inconclusive.

Many had expected an outright declaration after the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, polled majority votes of about 254,698 while Gboyega Oyetola of the APC came a close second with 254,345 votes, but that was not the case.

The 353 votes’ difference between the two was enough ground for the returning officer, Joseph Fuwape, to declare the election inconclusive.

“Unfortunately as the returning officer, it’s not possible to declare anybody as the clear winner of the election on the first ballot,” Mr Fuwape, vice chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, said.

He explained that the total registered voters in the five polling units where elections were cancelled is 3,498 votes.

Since that figure was higher than the difference between the votes of the leading candidates, a rerun election had to be conducted, the INEC chief explained.

“I, Joseph Adeola Fuwape, hereby, declare this election inconclusive,” he said.

INEC’s election guideline made pursuant to Section 153 of the Electoral Act stipulates a rerun if the margin of victory in an election is lower than the number of voters in units where elections are cancelled.

The electoral body then went ahead to fix Thursday, September 27 as the day of the rerun election.

Indeed, the rerun may be considered as crucial as the election itself and must be accorded a special status by parties involved owing to the complications.

Even though INEC has outlawed campaigns ahead of the rerun, the two major contenders still have some assignment to do ahead of Thursday.

Back To The Drawing Board

A strewn of marriages and compromises will shape the Thursday Osun rerun to be held in seven polling units in four local governments of the state.

Election will be contested by the 48 political parties in Orolu Local Government, Ward 9, polling unit 001 with a total registered voters of 393, polling unit 004, same ward, with a total of 387 registered voters, and another polling unit in Ward 9 in Orolu with a total registered voters of 167.

In Ife North local government area, Ward 15, unit 010, with voting strength of 502 voters, the election was cancelled due to card reader problems. In Ife South, Ward 16, two polling units were affected with a voting strength of 812 and 502 respectively.

In Osogbo, one unit was affected with a voting strength of 884 registered voters. The collating officer had alleged that the presiding officer of that particular unit absconded with the results, and no further explanations came from that.

Omisore, Angry ‘Bride’

Although all the 48 parties that took part in Saturday’s election will take part in the rerun, the rerun election in reality has become a two-horse race between PDP and APC. But the local governments involved takes the battle a little away from them.

With a voting strength of over 1800 combined, the three affected polling units in Ife North and South could be decisive in the rerun.

In the final results declared for both local governments, the APC won in both with a minimum margin of 650 votes over its closest rival in each of the local governments. However in both local governments, a summation of the votes of the PDP and Mr Omisore’s SDP dwarfs the APC votes by over 3,500 votes in each local government. In fact, in Ife South, the SDP defeated the PDP to come second behind the APC.

Mr Omisore who won in the two other local governments in Ife (East and West) is considered a grassroots Ife politician. He joined the PDP after a fallout with party executives of Alliance for Democracy (one of APC’s foundation parties), and then joined SDP after losing out in PDP’s gubernatorial bid for 2018. He was the PDP governorship candidate in 2014.

Mr Omisore’s political prominence dated back to 1999 when he emerged as deputy governor of the state under the AD. His career took an unfavourable dent in 2001 when he was accused of being complicit in the murder of then Nigeria’s Attorney-General, Bola Ige who was murdered in his Bodija Ibadan residence on December 23, 2001.

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