We won’t shift Osun senatorial poll, INEC tells PDP

The electoral umpire also said it had received court papers in a case filed by Senator Dino Melaye to stop the plan of the commission from verifying the signatures of members of his constituency asking the Senate to sack him.

The commission was reacting to a statement by the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, in which it alleged that there were plans by the Osun State Government to force the commission to shift the election.

But the Director of Publicity and Voter Education at the commission, Mr. Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, told one of our correspondents on the telephone in Abuja on Wednesday, that the commission was not planning to shift the election.

He said, “We are preparing for the election as scheduled and we have no plan to either postpone it or cancel it. That claim (by the PDP) that the election was going to be postponed is not true. We are planning for the election and we are going ahead with it. I’m not aware of the plan to shift the election.”

The National Chairman of the PDP, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, had alleged that there were serious moves by the Osun State Government to force the commission to shift the election.

Sheriff, in a statement by its Acting National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Bernard Mikko, in Abuja on Wednesday, warned that the PDP would not succumb to the alleged plan to delay the election.

He said that the plan to shift the election was being hinged on alleged unfavourable security report.

Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Accord Party in Osun State, Mr. Segun Fanibe, has said his party is not supporting any of the candidates contesting the by-election.

Fanibe, who said this in an interview with one of our correspondents in Osogbo on Wednesday, explained that the AP was not supporting any of the candidates in order to allow it to prepare adequately for the 2018 governorship election.

The AP chairman said, “We had a candidate for Osun West by-election before but along the line we asked him to drop his ambition because the election and the governorship poll are close.

“We are now focusing on the governorship election holding next year. So, we don’t have a candidate for the by-election now. We are also not supporting any of the parties contesting for now.

“No one of them has come to us for support but we will welcome anyone who comes. Anyone who comes to us must be prepared to answer serious questions on what his mission is and how he is going to have a positive effect on the lives of the people.”

He, however, said his party would not support any candidate with no clear cut mission and programme to benefit the people.

Fanibe expressed confidence about the chances of the AP in the 2018 governorship poll, saying the party had begun moves to mobilise the people of the state to its side in order to deliver the dividends of democracy to them if elected.

Osaze-Uzzi, who spoke with one of our correspondents on the telephone in Abuja on Wednesday, said that the commission would study the court papers before taking