Crisis looms in Edo PDP over party primary; as defeated aspirant rejects results

AGENE GODWIN, Benin
An aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State, Matthew Iduoriyekemwen, has rejected the outcome of the party’s primary, which produced Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu as its candidate.
He also pledged his loyalty to the Ali Modu Sheriff leadership of the party and added that he would participate in the primary election of the group scheduled for June 28.‎
The former Majority Leader in the state House of Assembly, who spoke in Benin,, described the primary election as a “comedy” which was “clinically-manipulated” to favour a preferred candidate of the state leadership of the party.
According to him “Having looked at all the processes, starting from the clinical manipulation and rigging of the primary, I hereby fully dissociate myself from every process that led to that so-called primary which ended on June 20.
“Myself and members of my team across the state reject the outcome and we pledge our loyalty to the authentic leadership of the party headed by His Excellency, Ali Modu Sheriff. They have drawn up the programme for the PDP primary and I hereby declare that myself and my team are participating in that primary.
“Myself and members of my campaign team have met. We have tried to review all that transpired and we have come up‎ with the fact that what transpired that day could best be termed a comedy, in the sense that the processes that led to the event of that day were clinically planned and orchestrated like the party had indeed endorsed a candidate.”
The aggrieved aspirant explained that the affirmation of the delegates negated the prescription of party’s constitution on the direct nomination of delegates at the wards and revealed “the manipulation of the state‎ chairman, who was the main actor of the entire process and tried to get the candidates to adopt ad hoc delegates, who were elected in the last state congress, where the chairman and other members of the state executive were elected.”
“The manipulation did not even end at that. It is so sad that, even at this time when democracy in its simplest term means the government of the people, by the people and for the people, people were given strict instructions as to which directions as to which direction to vote.
“Very far from what we know as open-secret ballot system, a new card was developed and you could even witness first-hand ‎at the stadium a situation where two, three persons where writing at the table and ticking and you could easily know the direction of the vote.”
Iduoriyekemwen further stated that the Makarfi-led governorship primary ‎would not stand as there was not provision in the PDP constitution for a caretaker committee to conduct the electoral exercise.
“There is a national chairman who has a valid court order‎ retaining him in office till about 2018, who is actually running the affairs of the party and the constitution of the party does not even create room for a caretaker committee at the national level to midwife the process of the emergence of the gubernatorial candidate in a state.
“Having looked at the court orders and seen the legal papers, we know that, as at today, that is the man and the executive that have the legal authority to conduct the primary of the PDP for the emergence of the gubernatorial candidate in the Edo State election.