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The Action Alliance
(AA) in Oyo State on Tuesday protested against the exclusion of its
logo from the list of political parties which appeared on ballot papers
in the last elections.

The Oyo State
chairman of the party, Babatunde Anifowose-Kelani, who led some other
party officials to address a press conference at their Ibadan office
yesterday, sought the support of all Nigerians to fight the alleged
injustice.

In a speech
presented to the press, the party chairman accused the hierarchies of
the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of conniving with
some expelled members of the party to ensure that the AA was not
registered by the electoral body.

According to him,
despite fulfilling all the laid down rules of the electoral act on
party participation in elections at record time, the INEC still denied
them the right to be part of the April poll.

“The nominations
were concluded but when it was time for submission, INEC refused to
accept the completed forms it gave out to us earlier on a trump-up
excuse that there existed a crack in our national exco.

“It was, however,
discovered that INEC was acting out a script by a cabal within the
commission. They sponsored non-members to camouflage as national
officers of AA so as to make it look as if there was a crack.

“We tried to make
them see the truth that we have no crack in our party but they would
not listen. Investigation has, however, revealed that some charlatans
within INEC are conniving with some powerful but disgruntled
politicians who were members of our party up till 2006 to get Action
Alliance deregistered so as to ensure their illicit activities while in
AA is covered up,” he alleged.

Mr Anifowose-Kelani
further alleged that all court orders the party obtained and served on
the electoral body with respect to the attempts to deny them
participation were ignored.

He said as far as he and the party are concerned, there were not elections in Oyo State.

According to the
chairman, Oyo is the strongest base of the AA, adding that they fielded
candidates in almost all the electives post available in the state.

But to his
consternation, the logo of the party was missing in the ballot papers
for the elections, except that of the state House of Assembly.

Against the constitution

Mr Anifowose-Kelani
said the case of the systemic exclusion from the elections was already
in court and would be followed to a ‘logical conclusion’.

He also debunked
the rumour that the state leadership had collected money from some
individuals to play spoilers role in the victory of the Action Congress
of Nigeria (ACN) in the elections.

“It is not true
that we collected money for this struggle. We were already in court
before the elections were conducted. It is not that we are just
starting now. I even expect the beneficiary of this injustice to join
in this crusade because it could be their turn tomorrow,” he said.