Translate

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

We’ve put Ondo gov election behind us —ACN


alt
Barely 10 days after Governor Olusegun Mimiko won the gubernatorial election in Ondo State, the national chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande, on Monday, said his political party had already put the poll behind them.

He contended that the people of the state reserve the exclusive rights to determine who leads them, saying “no one race or political contest is worth damaging our democracy. We would rather lose the race and gain democracy than win the race and lose democracy in the process.”
Reacting to the outcome of the election, in which ACN came third with 143,512 votes, in a press statement, Chief Akande remarked that “the governorship election in Ondo State is over and the ballots received by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had been tallied. Some people have urged us to reject the INEC results outright, because they do not favour my party. This we shall not do.”
The statement added, “This is our position. We believe in the right of the people of Ondo State to determine who leads them. For us in the Action Congress of Nigeria, the Ondo State election is a battle in a larger war; the war of deepening democracy and ensuring accountability in our country. We have, therefore, resolved to put the elections behind us while pursuing the task of providing leadership to our people effectively.”
Akande maintained that “should we find ultimately that irregularities and wrongful actions materially altered the results, we shall contest the transgression as is ours and duty in a democracy.”