NASS Election: PDP’s Probe Of How Its Members Voted Is Illegal, Oshiomole says

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, has described as illegality, the move by the Peoples Democratic Party to investigate how its members voted in the 9th National Assembly election. 

Recall that the candidates of the APC – Ahmed Lawan, Ovie Omo-Agege, Femi Gbajabiamila, and Ahmed Wase, had emerged as Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Deputy Speaker, respectively.

The results indicated that some PDP members voted for them in the election against their party’s instructions.

The PDP thereafter announced its decision to set up a committee to probe the roles played by some of its members in the polls.

The committee headed by a former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, is to establish the level of culpability of the members in the outcome of the election.

Oshiomhole commended the members of the party for voting for the APC candidates despite the secret ballot system used for the election by the Clerk of the National Assembly, Sanni Omolori.

He said, “I was particularly excited when the clerk in breach of a court order insisted on conducting secret ballot and our party members in the two chambers proved their complete loyalty.

“The way the manner they did, such that the PDP that was calling for secret ballot, because they didn’t want people to know how people voted, are now conducting an inquiry into who voted for who among them. This is a complete violation of the essence of secret ballot.

“The idea of secret ballot is that nobody should know who voted for who. Now,  the PDP is going down in history as a party that seeks to investigate how people voted in the secret ballot. That is a gross violation of the most basic principles of democracy regarding  secret ballot.”

Admitting that it was challenging to arrive at the choice of leadership for the two chambers, Oshiomhole said they succeeded because they learnt from past mistakes.

He urged the principal officers to carry their colleagues along when making decisions.