A councillorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Johnson Faloye in Saturday’s local government election in Ondo State, has accused a serving Commissioner in the state of planning to manipulate the election result.
Faloye said he polled a total of 520 votes in the election to defeat his close rival, Korede Folorunsho of the All Progressives Congress who polled 498 votes.
Faloye had participated in the election held at unit 03 of Oba Ile in Akure North Local Council Area of the state.
Addressing journalists, the SDP councillorship candidate alleged that the Commissioner led thugs to the polling units in the town to hijack ballot papers and other election materials.
Faloye said the Commissioner went to Araromi and Owode to snatch the election materials and disrupt the exercise due to the popularity of the SDP in the community.
He alleged that despite the resistance from the people, the Commissioner went ahead with thugs to thumbprint and stuffed the ballot papers in favor of the council lordship candidate of the APC.
He complained that the action of the Commissioner led to the cancellation of elections in three polling units.
According to him, the election results were cancelled at owode,Araromi and Maternity units by the electoral officers due to the violence perpetrated by the serving Commissioner.
“The election was cancelled at the collation centre at Ejioba High School and Faloye was declared the winner publicly but the commissioner is going about to announce a different result.
“We want the Commissioner to be called to order and let him stay off the election collation Centre in Oba Ile because we reliably learned that he has gone to ODIEC office to manipulate the result of Oba Ile Ward 09.
“We are asking ODIEC to abide by the result that was declared inside the Ejioba Secondary School in Oba Ile collation centre in order to avoid any violence as people are already boiling with anger.
“And we are also pleading with governor (Rotimi Akeredolu) to call his Commissioner to order because we are aware he has perfected plans to manipulate the election results of Oba-Ile.