Ondo South Senator, Jimoh Ibrahim has lamented the outcome of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Ondo 2024 governorship primary election held on April 20th 2024, describing the exercise as a “mega fraud” that would end at the Supreme Court.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Ibrahim said the primary election did not hold in 159 out of 203 polling units across the three senatorial districts in Ondo State.
He insisted that Kogi State governor, Ododo Ahmed Usman, who was the Chairman of Ondo State Primary Election Committee, fraudulently declared Lucky Aiyedatiwa winner in cahoots with the former Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege.
Armed with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s report, the lawmaker disclosed that he has filed a complaint at a Federal High Court in line with provisions of the Electoral Act, which stipulates that “complaints arising from primary election be filed within 14 days”.
In the INEC report which Jimoh personally made available to journalists, DAILY POST observed that the primary election did not hold in 15 out of 18 LGAs in Ondo.
Ibrahim further alleged that Ododo and Omo-Agege changed the date of collation of results midway to allow them perfect the “electoral fraud” in favour of the incumbent governor of Ondo State, Lucky Aiyedatiwa.
To buttress his point, Jimoh pointed to a letter written by Ododo, which was addressed to the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Akure, purportedly changing the date of collation on the day of the primary election.
Parts of the letter, which was sighted by DAILY POST, reads: “Please refer to our letters on the above stated subject matter, dated 5th April, 2024 with Ref. Number APC/NHDQ/INEC/19024/016 wherein we requested for a change in the State Collation Centre.
“We are writing to further inform the Commission of ...ponement of the collation of election results for the All Progressives Congress, APC primary election, which is scheduled for 20th April, 2024. ...ponement became necessary due to unforeseen circumstances regarding the submission of results from the Local Government Collation Centre Officers.
“Despite our best efforts to ensure timely collation, most of our Local Government collation officers will arrive late, as a result of logistic challenges which have led to a delay in the collation processes.”