An aspirant at the All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial primary in Ondo State, Wale Akinterinwa, has vehemently condemned Saturday’s exercise, describing it as flawed.
Naijaonpoint recalls that Governor Usman Ododo of Kogi State, who heads the party’s organizing committee, announced the inconclusive status of the election on Sunday.
This declaration came amidst calls from some aspirants for the cancellation of what they described as a chaotic and poorly managed exercise.
In a statement released on Sunday, a spokesman for the Wale Akinterinwa Campaign Organisation, Segun Ajiboye, Labeled the primary a “show of shame.”
The statement accused the Ododo-led committee of failing to properly oversee the electoral process.
“Without any fear of contradiction, we state here that no election was held in any part of Ondo State on Saturday to elect the candidate of the APC,” Ajiboye asserted.
According to the campaign organization, there were no indications that a legitimate primary took place.
“It is on record with incontrovertible evidence that nothing in the semblance of a primary election was held in all the 203 wards in Ondo State,” the statement continued.
The campaign described the supposed election as an event where the committee chairman purportedly arrived to “write the result of an election that was never conducted.”
“Saturday’s election presented our dear party with a rare opportunity to endear itself to the people of the state. All that was needed was for us to organize an election that would be hailed by all, even the opposition. But we bungled the opportunity with the sham organized by the electoral committee,” Ajiboye lamented.
Reports from the ground on Saturday suggested widespread disillusionment among party supporters, who had reportedly waited for hours under the sun for electoral officers who never appeared.
“Rather, what they witnessed was a crowd of our enthusiastic supporters who stood in the sun for several hours waiting for the elusive electoral officers to turn up. But we dashed their hopes and expectations of a robust democratic engagement,” the statement added.
© 2024 Naijaonpoint, a division of NOP Media Inc.