Osun APC primaries: Ibiyemi, Makinde, other Reps aspirants petition Appeal Panel
…Decry intimidation, injustice at Ife Federal Constituency
Jeleel Olawale
House of Representatives aspirants under the All Progressives Congress (APC), who participated in the just concluded primaries in Osun State, have petitioned the party’s appeal panel over what they described as intimidation and injustice at Ife Federal Constituency.
The petition, which was addressed to the chairman, APC appeal panel, was jointly signed by the aggrieved six aspirants and made available to journalists in Ile Ife.
The petitioners include Hon. Rotimi Makinde, Dr. Samuel Ibiyemi, Barr Adeyemi Adetise, Engr Marcus Adedini, Hon Elugbaju Olayera and Hon Nike Omoworare.
According to the petitioners, “We notice that the primary election conducted is an abuse of fairness, equity and justice.”
The petition reads in part: “The length and breadth of the Federal Constituency is permeated with violence and thuggery supervised by the Osun State Deputy Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon.Tajudeen Lawal.
“It is appalling that the whole exercise is skewed fraudulently in favour of a particular candidate. We equally questioned the rationale of deploying an already biased party’s local chairmen and ward chairmen to conduct such an important national assignment.
“No election was whatsoever conducted in the whole of the Ife Federal Constituency. All the election materials were taken to the house of the Deputy Chairman, Hon. Tajudeen Lawal and Chairman, Ife East Local Council, Hon. Akinwale Akinwole who filled and assigned figures to candidates as he wished leaving hundreds of loyal party members languishing in the sun at voting centres waiting for an election that never be.
“Ife South local Government, election materials were hijacked to a party leader’s house at Ilode where he assigned figures to his favourite without taking into consideration interest of the general party members and aspirants who had invested millions of naira to promote the party for the primary election.
“The members to conduct the primary election are supposed to be neutral and unbiased as opposed to the system used for the election whereby Ward and local party chairmen were used who were handpicked and loyal to some party leaders. These party Ward and local party chairmen were used to frustrate other aspirants in order to favour their announced aspirant.
“The procedure of this primary election subject matter of this letter was flagrantly abused and violated as all steps taken were at variance with the directive and process put in place by the National Working Committee of the party,” they insisted.
The petitioners noted that the election results as released by the ward chairmen and local party chairmen were not the right expression of what actually happened at the polling units.
They said, “Thugs were used to intimidate party members and chased them out of the voting centres across the Federal Constituency.
“Video evidences abound to proof this allegation. We would also like to inform your panel that there was no presence of representatives of both the INEC and APC officials from the headquarters or state representatives to monitor or conduct the election.”
Consequently, the aspirants rejected in its entirety the result of the House of Representatives Primary Election held on May 27th, 2022, saying it opposed the principle of fairness, equity, justice and it is a rape on their fundamental Human Rights.
The aspirants, therefore, called on the appeal panel of the party to cancel and conduct fresh election in Ife federal constituency.
It would be recalled that an online newspaper had reported cases of attacks on members of the party before and during the primary election as well as hijack of result sheets. It was also reported that elections were not hold in most of the designated centres in the federal constituency.
Meanwhile, the state chapter of the APC had adopted direct primary mode for its primary elections to select candidates across the state.
