Protest Trails APC Primary Election To Produce Candidate For Ondo House Of Reps Seat

By Ayodele Oni

The recently held primary election to elect a House of Representatives candidate for Akoko North-east/ North-west Federal Constituency in Ondo State is far from been over.

One of the contestants in the primary, which was held to replace Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, appointed as minister of interior by President Bola Tinubu has alleged that the exercise was fraught with irregularities.

The complainant, Olugbenga Araoyinbo in a petition to the leadership of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) claimed that fake delegates were handpicked to vote during the exercise, which produced Ifeoluwa Ehindero.

The bye-election has been fixed for February 3 by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).

The outcome of the exercise indicates that Ehindero was credited  with 105 votes out of the 106 accredited for the party primary.

Displeased with the outcome of the primary election, Araoyinbo who was arrested during the exercise asked the National Chairman of the party,  Abdullahi  Ganduje to cancel the outcome, which he said was not in compliance with the party’s regulation and did not reflect the wish of the members of the party at the constituency.

Araoyinbo, requested that he should be either declared as an authentic candidate or a fresh election conducted.

He stated that “There was no delegate congress in the two local governments before the primary election in accordance with the guideline of the party that was sent out by the national organ of the party before the primary.

“That over 90 genuine, committed, and faithful party members from across the 23 electoral wards that paid for and collected forms to participate in the delegate congress, which was scheduled for the 5th of January 2024  were excluded as the delegate congress did not hold as scheduled.

“But instead,  fake and unknown persons were injected into a fake delegate list which was not even made available to the aspirants before the time scheduled for the primary election and even till I write this letter.

“That if these 90 party members who collected forms to participate as delegates in the primary election,  which never held, had been made to participate,  they would have voted for me and I would have won as they are all my supporters.”

Consequently,  Araoyinbo said since 90 out of his supporters were excluded from the primary election due to non-holding of election of delegates and smuggling of unknown persons into the so-called delegates list, he should be declared as the winner of the primary election.

Alternatively,  he said holding a fresh primary election starting with the conduct of delegate congress in  compliance with the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria,  the Electoral Act, the APC guideline, and the timetable for the election is the only panacea to the crisis over the election.