PROTESTERS led by frontline leaders of the People’s Democratic Party including Senate President Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, and the national chairman of the party, Uche Secondus demonstrating their dissatisfaction with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over their perceived mishandling of the 2018 Osun gubernatorial elections.

This was after they had earlier converged at the national headquarters of the PDP in Abuja. The protesters are demanding that INEC declare the PDP candidate Ademola Adeleke as the winner of the Osun election. The protesters said that the Nigeria Police and INEC are arms of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to perpetuate electoral fraud.

Other protesters include the former Niger State Governor and presidential aspirant Sule Lamido; Senator Dino Melaye.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sept 23, announced the winner of the gubernatorial election conducted in Osun State. And by the evening of the same day, the electoral body declared the election inconclusive and would conduct a re-run election, a declaration which sparked outrage from the opposition party, PDP.

At the end of the collation of votes, the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, won majority votes of 254,698 votes while Gboyega Oyetola of the APC came a close second with 254,345 votes, with a difference of about 353 votes.

In some of the local governments where the re-run election held, there were records of violence and vote buying. Journalists and election observers were also arrested and barred from monitoring the voting process.

At the end of the re-run, INEC declared Gboyega Oyetola of the APC as the winner of the 2018 Osun re-run governorship election. He was returned as governor-elect at the end of a supplementary election which held in seven polling units across four local governments – a declaration which the PDP candidate described as a charade, and was therefore rejected.