PH
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has urged the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmud Yakubu to first purge the electoral commission under him of partisanship and election manipulations before seeking the establishment of Electoral Offences Tribunal.
The governor said any Electoral Offences Tribunal established under this present dispensation would only be used against opposition parties as the Department of States Services (DSS), police, armed forces and other agencies of the federal government were used during the Bayelsa and Rivers States elections.
Mahmud had at a stakeholders’ forum in Abuja on Tuesday recommended the establishment of an Electoral Offences Tribunal, to curb violence during elections.
But Fayose in a statement on Thursday, said the commission’s alleged engagement in partisan interest is responsible for the orgy of violence marring the conduct of polls in recent time.
The governor said INEC as presently constituted does not encourage free, fair and violence free election.
Fayose noted that electoral violence was a product of electoral injustice, saying President Muhammadu Buhari has admitted his failure to conduct any free, fair and credible election since hem assumed office.
He stated that INEC under the Buhari’s APC government has lost its independence and its credibility has been eroded.
