The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has stated that the grandstanding posture of Barrister Hashim Abioye, the controversial chairman of the Osun State Independent Electoral Commission (OSSIEC), has exposed him as a pungently biased person who is not eligible to superintend over a fair, credible and acceptable local government council elections in the state.
Our position is premised on so many grounds not limited to his refusal to publicly deny being a card-carrying member of the PDP and his continuous membership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his avowed loyalty to the state Governor, Senator Ademola Adeleke who posted him to the electoral commission while he was still serving as the governor's Special Adviser on Legal Matters.
It would be recalled that Abioye, few days ago, personally rushed to the press to hastily indict the opposition APC alleging the party of changing nominated local government chairmanship and councillorship candidates without due process' in seven local government council areas of the state.
In another statement, the OSSIEC chairman alleged the APC of buying nomination forms on credit, an allegation we can readily confirm to be false.
We make bold to say that it was not possible for the major opposition APC which Abioye consented to have overpaid for the nomination fees in excess of N12,050,000.00K and was refunded by OSSIEC, to have bought nomination forms on credit as he alleged.
It is only a character who thinks through his anus and is apparently confused that could be approbating and reprobating at the same time as it was not humanly possible for someone who paid N50 million for a service worth of less than N40,000,000.00K to be accused of purchasing on credit. It doesn't add up.
That he, being the purported chairman of the supposed umpire, rushes to the media to expose contrived lapses on the side of a major political party, where there is none, while at the same time not denying his refusal to oblige the party necessary documents on formal request tells a lot about his ineligibility and incompetence to head such a sacred Commission.
The chairman seems to mix sanctity of roles of the Commission with dirty politics he appeared to be used with. Little wonders a politician of such manner is forbidden by law to head the Commission and a stipulation that a ruling party has flagrantly ignored.
It is rather unfortunate that instead of the compromised OSSIEC chairman to answer the copious queries put to him by the APC, he opted to veer off by refusing to deal with the accusation that his commission does not have a media officer and if it has, his or her name should be disclosed and when last did he/she issue a press statement on behalf of the commission? Is it fair for Abioye to turn himself to a one-man battalion who has been doing the work of all other departments in the commission?
Why is it difficult for the Commission's mouthpiece turned Chairman or other way round to deny the allegations that the Commission has refused to oblige the APC certified true copy of the Guidelines and other relevant documents until 20th September, 2024 just a few hours after the APC had cried to the world ?
By the way, doesn't he understand that by payment for the certification adds to the revenues for the state more so that such documents are supposed to be available to any willing members of the public?
Is it true that the Barr Hashim-led OSSIEC refused to acknowledge receipt of parcel by a Courier Service? The Chairman should be bold to respond to these questions too in a similar manner he rushed to the media.
The special adviser-turned Chairman of the OSSIEC ought to know that such documents are expected by law to be pasted by the Commission itself in all the wards across the state.
These are simple rules an expert in election-related legal matters ought to have known.
The garrulous OSSIEC chairman with the tongue and mien of a gentleman which he is far from being based on his unenviable antecedents also parried the question on why his commission chose to hurriedly close the office and vamoosed into the thin air before 2:15 pm on the day the affected APC candidates and their lawyers came to effect necessary corrections within the stipulated 48-hour ultimatum that his commission handed down to them. The whole development is shrouded with disbelief.
"It is therefore strange, if Abioye, a legal practitioner with 14 years post-call experience would not be in the know of the fact that a political party may withdraw the nomination of its candidate by notice in writing signed by the secretary of the political party and delivered in person to the commission not later than 14 days to the election?
"Our Chairman" ought to have read and understood these express and unambiguous provisions of the OSSIEC Law before making a regulation and dishing out commands in that regard. All this put a big question mark on competence and understanding of the one-man show constituted as the Commission.
Is it also not known to the compromised and controversial OSSIEC chairman that the law provides for a candidate to withdraw his candidature by notice in writing signed by him and delivered in person to the political party that nominated him for the election and the political party shall convey such withdrawal to the commission not later than seven days to the election?
Must the APC candidates be made to suffer for the obvious official lapses and dereliction of the ineptitude officials of the OSSIEC as the existing correspondence of the state leadership of the main opposition party have established the iron cast proof that everything needed to be done administratively had been done legally by the party to effect the changes in the nominations of some of the candidates?
Is it beyond the comprehension of Abioye, a lawyer, that it is a settled law by the judgment of the apex court of the land that an electoral management body has no constitutional power to disqualify a candidate from contesting elections without a valid order of a court?
We, as a party, observe that it was the seriousness that we have been putting into the forthcoming election process that has been the main reason that the compromised OSSIEC chairman has been trying to replay the ugly political episode of 1962 and 1963 when the electoral officers were disappearing from their offices with a view to denying the now defunct Action Group (AG) candidates the opportunity to submit their nomination forms.
Abioye's melodramatic scheming being displayed by him is with an intention to rig the election for the PDP by declaring the ruling party's candidates unopposed as the defunct Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) did in 1962 which we shall legally resist and challenge with the last pint of our blood.
The actions and inactions of the controversial OSSIEC chairman are portraying him as a pawn and puppet in the hand of the ruling PDP whose assignment to illegally invalidate the APC nominations is a brazen affirmation that Abioye is truly ready to stain his proverbial apparel at any cost to satisfy his employers and not to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the OSSIEC Law and the good people of Osun State.
We shall show to the peace-loving and innocent people of Osun State and beyond that a manipulative liar has been skillfully sought to produce the worst fraud in the forthcoming local government council elections to enable the PDP to `fraudulently win' all the seats in all the local governments, and this shall be vehemently resisted through the instrumentality of the law of the land.
e-SIGNED:
Chief KOLA OLABISI, Osun APC Director of Media and Information.
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