On Sunday, Mr Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa, the Governor of Ondo State was declared the winner of the APC Governorship primaries held over the weekend.
16 APC aspirants competed for a total of 171, 922 votes with the aim of emerging as the flagbearer of the party in the gubernatorial election coming up later in the year.
However, on Sunday, some members of the ruling party in the state took to the streets of Akure, the state capital to protest against the conduct of the primary.
The protesters alleged that the primary election committee led by Governor Ododo failed to follow the party’s guidelines.
The Director General of Olusola Oke Campaign Organisation, Ondo Central Senatorial District, Mr Adeniran Oyebade, who spoke on behalf of the protesters disclosed that the people of Ondo won’t fold their arms and watch this daylight robbery.
Oyebade said, “We are protesting against our mandate that was stolen. It was a daylight robbery, a monumental disaster. The APC delegated some people to Ondo State to conduct the primary, apparently, that was never done. They remained in Akure and started writing results.”
Oyebade further said the committee had divided the APC in the state.
“Election crime is a serious crime. You cannot come to the wards of our people and start terrorising them against their will. What we want is the cancellation of the election because the election did not take place,” he declared.
In the same vein, Mr Segun Ajiboye, the Campaign Organisation’s spokesman of another aspirant, Wale Akinterinwa, accused Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo of failing to organize a credible election.
“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. 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. At best, what can be said to have happened was that the committee chairman, Governor Ododo, arrived in the state at about 8 am on Saturday to write the result of an election that was never conducted,” he said.
“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 organise an election that would be hailed by all, even the opposition. But we bungled the opportunity with the sham organised by the electoral committee.
“The people have eyes and they can see. But on Saturday, they did not see any part of the state where electoral committee members counted the votes as expected. 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.”
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