The ROTIMI OLAWIN FOUNDATION (ROF) group has expressed dismay over the conduct of the just concluded Ogun West Youth Award poll.
It is pertinent to note that the founder and convener of our group; Comrade Olawin Rotimi was nominated for Cultural preservation award category when the poll started. Since the beginning of the poll, our team aggressively mobilized for him which earned him numbers of votes, even some were not even counted because they were made through bank transfers and not online as many of our people don’t understand how to vote through the portal.
In line with that we therefore ordered our teaming supporters to send the money for their votes to us while we add the votes to the portal ourselves.
Meanwhile, the committee of the poll announced 7pm of Friday; 25/10/2024 as the deadline for the poll. To God be the glory as at 10am of the aforementioned date we have added 95 votes to the portal of the poll while we have gathered N21,000 which is equivalent to 105 votes through transfer to our personal account.
Therefore, on the 25/10/2024 at about 06:52pm which is 8 minutes to the fixed deadline of the poll, we decided to add the 105 votes to Comrade Olawin Rotimi Ebenezer’s votes to elevate him to 200 votes as he was having 95 votes before adding the votes while his opponent one Obanla Taiwo was having 155 votes. The 105 votes was added successful through merchant Opay at the portal, the portal equivocally shutdown and left everyone worried. Immediately one of the committee in charge was contacted and they promised to revert back in no time but unfortunately nothing was done and what we could see flying around 24 hours later was a result of the poll that was released by the committee, in which the opponent of Comrade Olawin Rotimi; one Obanla Taiwo was declared the winner of cultural preservation award category as 95 votes was recorded for Comrade Olawin Rotimi instead of 200 votes and 180 votes was recorded for the wrongly declared winner instead of 155 votes.
Immediately our team sighted the result, we made a complaint to the committee in charge through one Yemi Adeola and the reply gotten was not in line with the rules and regulations that guides free, fair and credible poll or election as it was not stated if our payment for 105 votes were confirmed or not and the reason behind not adding it or not doing proper sorting before the winner was declared.
It now 24 hours after our complaints and we observed with dismay that no reasonable action has been taken by the committee. We thereby demand as follows:
1. That Comrade OLAWIN ROTIMI should be declared the winner as he and the committee posses the evidence of winning the poll with 200 votes against 155 votes of Obanla Taiwo that was declared the winner.
2. That if the committee can not declare him the original winner of the poll, all money for the 200 votes casted should be refunded to him as we won’t hesitate to use same for our charity program.
3. That the NYCN OGUN WEST should tender a public apology and state their reasons of not doing proper sorting and votes confirmation before declaring winners of a sensitive poll like this.
Our demands are as simple as stated, while we look forward to seeing actions from the committee of the poll within an ultimatum of 48 hours, before we proceed forward on expressing our grievances.
Thanks
E signed
Jimoh Omowunmi
Secretary Rotimi Olawin Foundation (ROF)
