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It is no longer news that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had postponed the forthcoming Lagos East Senatorial District Bye Election due to the ongoing nationwide crisis; the reported killings of unarmed and peaceful #EndSARS protesters at Lekki Toll Gate, other victims of trigger-happy policemen and some policemen that were also killed. The election was initially scheduled for October 31, 2020.
While commending the decision of INEC to postpone the elections out of respect for the affected, Babatunde Olalere Gbadamosi (BOG), the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the Lagos East Senatorial District Bye Election, however stated that the electoral body should’ve consulted concerned stakeholders before taking such drastic decision; postponement of the elections indefinitely.
This was contained in a statement credited to the Real Estate Developer and Politician. “It is imperative that INEC gives a date for the election that conforms with the requirements of the law especially that regarding the time within which the vacant seats must be filled – 90 days from the date the seat is declared vacant,” it partly read.
Furthermore, “This is all the more relevant considering that in the middle of one of Boko Haram’s deadliest campaigns of terror, occasionned by brutal killings, maiming, bombing and kidnapping of Nigerians, INEC still managed to conduct elections in the frontline states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa in 2019.”
To Gbadamosi, INEC’s strange decision to postpone the elections indefinitely “fits into a now familiar pattern of pandering to the whim of the APC, as if INEC is merely an appendage of that party” as the political climate in Lagos East “is not in favour of the ruling APC.”
He then demanded that the electoral body, INEC, acts in accordance with provisions of the law: “I, as a candidate in the next election hereby demand that INEC fix a date for the Bye-elections that conforms with relevant laws or risk losing whatever little credibility they have left.”
Ganiu Oloruntade
