A Lawyer, Benson Enikuomehin has stated categorically that there were no governorship primaries held by the All-Progressives Congress in Ondo State over the weekend.
Speaking with ARISE NEWS on Tuesday, Enikuomehin said the results that were released to the public were produced simply by allocation and not by the votes of the people.
The Chairman of the Ondo APC election committee and the Governor of Kogi State Usman Ododo had declared Lucky Aiyedatiwa the winner of the exercise in the early hours of Monday, affirming that the Ondo governor got the victory in 16 of the 18 local government areas of the State.
Aiyedatiwa was said to have amassed 48,569 votes in the primary to beat his closest rival Mayowa Akinfolarin who polled 15,343 votes in the election.
The primary which was held on Saturday saw several of the contestants alleging the elections didn’t take place anywhere in the State.
Enikuomehin stated that information was gathered that the governor’s team orchestrated a scheme to deploy 50 individuals per ward to instigate chaos in the event of unfavorable outcomes.
“We raised this alarm earlier that the team of the governor was planning to have 50 persons per ward who will unleash a crisis once they find out that they are not going to win. They denied and said they only held meetings in Akure for the purpose of planning their logistics. So, what happened was allocation of results. We are not even talking about cancellation because I didn’t exist. In Ifedore, Dr. Obe was the former chairman of that local government and he spoke to me confirming in all sincerity, that there was no voting in the ten wards in Ifedore.
“On Friday, April 19, Senator Omo Agege called in the evening, all the aspirants and told them that by the next morning that materials meant for the election will be distributed at Vonn Hotel and that everybody should be present by 7am. By 6:30am, the agents of virtually all the aspirants were present in the venue. From 6:30 to almost 9:30am, nothing was going on. Everyone was asking where the materials for the elections were. It was thereafter, the governor of Kogi State came and he was now asked where the materials were.
“He told the people present that the materials were distributed as early as 6:30 in the morning. Who distributed it and where was it distributed? Persons who were to be the returning officers, none existed. At 11.30am, the materials were still not distributed, but we reliably gathered that persons who were supposed to be electoral officers to manage the affairs of the party in the local governments were all in Akure; what they were doing, only God knows and then at the end of the day, they brought out results.”
The Lawyer cited the absence of transparency and adherence to party guidelines which further compounded the problem. He said with no materials or officials to oversee proceedings, the very foundation of the democratic process was called into question.
“The party guidelines provide for the procedures that must be followed in this kind of primaries and if the people have made unto themselves a guideline to be followed, it will be antithetical for them to go backward and do otherwise. These materials were not available. What were we to use? There were no materials, no individuals who came to say they were the officers to manage this. I challenge anyone to show to the whole world where these materials were distributed in the Vonn Hotel. If it is done, I will apologize.”
Enikuomehin also expressed disappointment in the Chairman of the election committee and Kogi State governor, Usman Ododo for allegedly lying to the public that an election that did not hold, was free, fair and credible. He also called out INEC for not carrying out their primary duties in Ondo State over the weekend.
“With all due respect to the governor of Kogi State, I am shocked and this is beyond any human comprehension that he will come out and say that the election is free, fair and credible. The governor should have some molecules of conscience. He came into the Vonn hotel at nine. For you to conduct the election, you must have the membership register with which you will distribute the materials to be used. How can INEC come to conduct elections and INEC say there are no voters’ registers and that they are not there and then you declare election. In all honesty, no material in Ugbo ward 4, so if you are recording the election, the governor was not even allowed to come to his own unit to vote.”
Chioma Kalu
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