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• Presents certificates of return to 69 chairmen, 393 councillors
• Says voters’ apathy not agency’s fault
The Osun Independent Electoral Commission (OSIEC), yesterday, declared 69 candidates who contested chairmanship positions in the state under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winners and presented them with certificates of return.
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The commission also said that 393 candidates of the APC, who contested the councillorship positions across the local councils, local council development areas and area councils, were declared winners and returned unopposed.
The OSIEC Chairman, Segun Oladitan, while addressing a press conference in the presence of newly-elected chairmen, vice chairmen and councillors at the OSIEC premises in Osogbo, said APC was the only party that participated in the election.
He declared and returned the 393 councillors unopposed, having fulfilled requirements of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) the Electoral Act 2022 and the Law of Osun State Independent Electoral Commission, 2022.
Oladitan declared 69 chairmen alongside their vice duly elected, having been subjected to YES or NO votes in their respective councils, LCDAs and area councils.
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However, the OSIEC Chairman did not issue any figures of the votes cast but said that all the chairmen and vice chairmen elected had not less than one-third of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the wards in the area councils according to Section 106 (1) (a) and (b) of the Electoral Act 2022.
He presented certificates of return to all the new council officials from 30 local councils, 32 LCDAs and seven area offices.
He admitted indirectly that there was voter apathy during the council election but said the commission should not be blamed for it.
He said political parties should be blamed for not mobilising the people of the state to participate actively at the polls, saying that it was not the duty of election management body to sensitise the people to participate in the polls. Oladitan had said that there was no legal inhibition preventing OSIEC from conducting the polls.
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