THE fallouts of the August 9 governorship election in Osun State took a new twist on Tuesday, when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) suspended two top electoral officers (EOs) over alleged electoral fraud during the exercise.
Nigerian Tribune authoritatively gathered that two officers allegedly colluded with the All Progressives Congress (APC) to manipulate the electoral process in Osogbo and Obokun local government areas.
Credible sources at the INEC headquarters in Osogbo informed the Nigerian Tribune that the “development is a an outcome of preliminary investigation by the INEC national commissioners, who were deployed by the commission to supervise the governorship election.”
According to one of the sources, the two electoral officers are suspended to create enough room for thorough investigation into electoral offences levelled against them.
“After the investigation must have been concluded, appropriate legal action, if need be, would commence to punish them for the misdemeanour,” the source said.
It could not be ascertained, as of the time of filing this report, if INEC acted on petition raised by any stakeholder in the poll or allegedly caught the two affected officers, but the INEC National Commissioner, who supervised the election, Ambassador Mohammed Wali confirmed the development.
Ambassador Wali said the two affected officers are currently under suspension, pending the outcome of investigation into issues raised against them.
Following the development, Nigerian Tribune was informed that some of the officers who participated in the exercise were jittery over plans by INEC to launch full scale investigation into their activities during the poll.
Reacting over the development, the APC’s director of Publicity, Research and Strategy, Mr Kunle Oyatomi, said, “it is not within the purview of the PDP to announce what went wrong or right at the INEC’s office, adding that they are not the spokespersons of the electoral body.
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