By Alaba Olusola Oke
Akure, April 21, 2024
Some aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State on Sunday protested at the party’s secretariat in Akure over alleged electoral irregularities in the ongoing governorship primary in the state.
The Gov. Usman Ododo-led seven-member committee had declared the Saturday’s primary inconclusive.
The committee said the exercise would continue in the 13 wards of Okitipupa Local Government area of the state with 9,515 total validated registered members from 12 noon on Sunday.
This is as the Wale Akinterinwa Campaign Organisation has described the primary election as a show of shame.
The protesters with placards were singing solidarity songs leading to traffic gridlock on the busy Oba-Adesida/Oyemekun Road.
They accused the Ododo committee of bringing phantom results from the primary, saying that there was no election in all the 203 wards in the state.
The protesters who alleged that forged results were put together by the committee, called for the cancellation of the exercise which they described as “Kangaroo primary.”
The placards were with different inscriptions such as: “No election in Ondo State,” and “APC primary electoral officers failed to show up in all wards in Ondo State.”
Others are: “We Demand Fairness and Justice in APC Primary Election in Ondo State”, “APC Must Not Collapse In Ondo State,” and “Primary Election Materials Were not Distributed in all Wards.”
The protesters, who are supporters of Olusola Oke, Wale Akinterinwa and Jimi Odimayo, called for fresh primary in the interest of peace.
Addressing journalists, the Director-General of Olusola Oke Campaign Organisation, Ondo Central Senatorial District, Mr. Adeniran Oyebade, who spoke on behalf of the protesters, described the election as broad-day robbery.
“We are protesting against our mandate that was stolen. It was a broad-day robbery, a monumental disaster.
“APC delegated some people to Ondo State to conduct the primary; apparently, that was never done.
“They remained in Akure and started writing results. They wrote the results of all the 203 wards in the State, taking the mandate of the people into their own hands.
“At the end of the day, we started seeing different results flying around stating one particular aspirant won the election, but that never happened.
“APC as a party is about to set Ondo State on fire, and we will never take this lightly. We want the most popular aspirant; an aspirant that knows the people; we want the aspirant whose name is a household brand in every part of Ondo State,” he said.
Oyebade called for the suspension of Gov. Usman Ododo of Kogi from the party.
“Ododo should be suspended from the party. He is not fit for this kind of job.
“Electoral fraud 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 primary because election did not take place. There is no need to say that the election was inconclusive,” he said.
Mr. Ade Adeniyi and Mr. Bola Fisayo also said APC members, who were eligible to vote for their preferred aspirants, waited for the conduct of the primary but to no avail.
