- says petition to bloat party’s register to National Chairman part of rigging plans
By Banji Ayoola
An All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship aspirant in Ondo State, Ambassador Olusola Iji, has appealed to the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and National Working Committee, NWC, to adopt the direct primary option in conducting the party’s governorship primary election slated for July 20.
In a statement signed by the Director, Media Services, of Sola Iji Campaign Organisation, SICO, Prince Sola Aregbesola, the envoy appealed to Oshiomhole and the party’s NWC “led by our indefatigable Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to refuse to be dissuaded from the noble and roundly popular decision to ensure a free, fair and credible conduct of the 2020 Ondo Governorship Primaries via direct option.”
He also appealed to the party’s members “to be politically alert to avoid being caught napping by any Aspirant’s election rigging antics from wherever schemed.”
He described a recent petition to Oshiomhole, alleging plan by an unnamed aspirant to bloat the party’s register as a ruse to cover alleged plans to rig the coming party’s governorship primary election by another aspirant of the party.
He said the alleged attempts of a particular governorship aspirant from the state to “bloat the size of APC registered members list in the fringe towns and villages sharing borders with our dear Ondo State”, were imaginary.
According to the petition, the attempt by the unnamed aspirant was to
criminally subvert the political will of the party’s members in the exercise holding on July 20.
However, Iji alleged that the petition was a part of the grand design to repeat the scenario which played out in the hotly contested acrimonious primary of the party in 2016.
The statement said: “We make bold here to say that Ondo APC Leadership under Ade Adetimehin it is who recently compelled the 3009 units, 203 wards spread in the 18 local government areas of the state to generate 130 names from each unit with an unholy intention to smuggle the newly generated members list into the official APC members register in Ondo State.
“This is in tandem with Arakunrin Akeredolu’s plans to unfairly tilt the outcome of the Primary elections of July 20, 2020 his way.
“We recall that a similar scenario played out in the hotly contested and acrimonious 2016 APC Primary elections in our sunshine state. invariably, the results were later recommended to be cancelled by the Appeals Committee set up by the National Working Committee of APC.
“The National Working Committee itself finally voted to cancel the Primary elections which fraudulently returned Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu as APC candidate. The subversive role later played in the terrible scheme by then National Chairman Chief Odigie Oyegun remains one of the saddest points in our democratic history in Ondo State.
“We are convinced that Arakunrin Akeredolu having done it in 2016 and got away with it, may be scheming to replay the debilitating joker he used during the 2016 Governorship Primary elections with the 130 new names being compiled from each of the 3009 units of APC by his cronies in Ondo APC Leadership.
“The National Working Committee of APC under the leadership of Comrade Adams Oshiomole will do wonderfully well to do all that may be necessary to stop this planned political heist by Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and his stooges from becoming a reality in our dear State.”
It said: “The political experience of Ondo APC members on Primary elections blatant manipulations of 2016 being our witness and the historical antecedents of incumbent Governor Rotimi Akeredolu to engage in the unthinkable as he evidently exhibited in the 2016 APC Primaries being our guide, the petition written and forwarded to the National Chairman and NWC members by the self-styled Ibi Giga Ambassadors – state funded arm of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s 2020 re-election Group should be seen and treatedas a revelation of the game plan of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and his various reelection campaign teams in the 2020 Ondo Primary Elections planned for July 2020.
“Our findings in all the 18 LGAs of Ondo State confirmed a vicious disconnect between Akeredolu’s Administration and our APC members in the Units through to the Wards and Local Government Excos. That is the major reason why Arakunrin Akeredolu is now sorely jittery to face APC members directly in any primary contest.
“Having totally failed to have his clandestine way with the Presidency and APC NWC on the 2nd term automatic ticket issue, his help-seeking visits to the National Leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in Lagos falling flatly, political blackmail option is now being childishly churned out by his many campaign outfits in Akure with a view to distracting attention from their own nefarious activities aimed at causing more political confusion.
“Curiously, Akeredolu’s several campaign outposts in Ondo State are being funded and sustained indirectly from our commonwealth.”
According to the statement: “For emphasis, we like to reiterate here that not only is our great Brand – Ambassador Olusola Iji actively engaged in the preparations and visual campaigns associated with the APC Governorship Primary Elections in Ondo State, July 2020, the field reports at our disposal, APC members across Ondo State are fully supportive of our campaign and are ready to vote for Amb. Sola Iji in the Primaries of July 20, 2020.
“We are not unaware of the readiness of some other aspirants who are similarly preparing to slug it out in the primaries with Ambassador Olusola Iji and the incumbent Governor Rotimi Akeredolu on the platform of APC. The more, the merrier.”
The statement declared an “unwavering commitment and Ondo State APC members resolve to solidly queue behind AmbassadorSola Iji – our unique brand, party -unifying -champion and stainless governorship aspirant, as he girds his loins to participate and soundly defeat all comers in the July 20, 2020 party primaries which we hope will be credible, fair, image-recreating and position-strengthening as far as partisan politicking is concerned in Ondo State and Nigeria.”
In the petition to Oshiomhole, a pro-Akeredolu group, Ibi Giga Ambassadors, had alleged that some APC aspirants planned to import fake members from Osun and Lagos states to bloat the party’s register for the party’s direct primary.in the state.
The party’s leadership is yet to announce the mode to be adopted for the primary whether direct or indirect.
Specifically, the Akeredolu group alleged that some governorship aspirants of the party planned to import fake members from Lagos and Osun states ahead of the July 20 APC primary in the state.
It addressed the petition to Oshiomhole through the state APC Chairman, Engr Ade Adetimehin. It was signed by the Ibi Giga Ambassadors Director-General, Prof Lanre Olu-Adeyemi, Deputy Director General, Barrister Alaba EnioIa-Ajipe and the group’s Secretary.
It was copied to Akeredolu, State Commissioner of Police and the Stare Director of the DSS.
Olu-Adeyemi, represented by EnioIa-Ajipe had read the petition to newsmen at a Press Conference held at the NUJ Press Centre in Akure, alleging that the said individuals who are also governorship aspirants had commenced moves to inject their loyalists into the register with the intention of truncating Governor Akeredolu’s chances in the direct primary.
But Adeyemi insisted that the 2014 party membership registration remained valid and any attempt to doctor the list could lead to crisis in the party and loss of governorship election in October by APC.
According to the petition: “The said desperate Aspirants and their collaborators in an attempt to have their way if the national leadership of the party adopts Direct Primary as the mode of electing the Party Candidate in the forthcoming scheduled Primary Election of our Party in Ondo State on 20th July, 2020 have gone to the state of Osun and collated Party Membership Slips which are in thousands and have been injecting these fictitious names on these Slips into a concocted Party membership Register which they intend to use in Ondo State towns bordering Osun state as these towns are mostly populated by Osun indigenes living here in Ondo state and doing their legitimate businesses for several years now.
“According to our source, the Aspirants have perfected plans to ‘smuggle’ into Ondo State, people from Osun State who would appear as eligible Voters in “their various polling Units’ on the day of the Primary Election if the Primary Election is Direct mode.
“The other Aspirant has also gone as far as to Lagos state to collate thousands of Party Membership Slips to be used by his supposed supporters thereby designing a new Party Membership Registration Forms which have been distributed secretly across the various Wards in Ondo State.
“We are concerned that this unscrupulous action, if not quickly addressed, portends grave dangers to the fortunes of our great party as we prepare for the Party Primaries in July 2020 and the gubernatorial elections in October 2020.
“Sir, we want to put on record that the party membership registration that was done in 2014 formed the existing APC Party Register in Ondo State and it is the only known party membership register that is in existence in Ondo State as at today.
“Thus any illegal injection of names as is currently being done by some desperate elements is inimical to the good image of our party and will no doubt create avoidable and unnecessary crisis in our dear State.
“It is pertinent to emphasise here that our alarm is not borne out of cowardice but to guide jealously and safeguard the peace and tranquility that is prevalent in our Party in particular and generally in Ondo State at the moment because Ondo State people are very sophisticated and enlightened and would not condone any attempt by anyone who would for selfish reason overtly or covertly overreach a process thereby putting the innocent indigenes of the state into a sorry state.
“On our own part, we want to put on record that we are mobilising for the re-election of the incumbent Governor whether the mode of the primary election is direct or indirect.
“However. we are compelled to raise this alarm as we crave for a level playing field as we go into the primary election. We are concerned that if we allow some desperate Aspirants and their cohorts to tinker with the Party Register, it will tell on the integrity of the selection process and may spark unnecessary reactions that will affect the peace that we currently enjoy in Ondo State.
“We are mostly concerned that these desperate Elements knowning fully well that they cannot go into a free and fair contest with the incumbent governor whose performances in all facets of the economy is greatly celebrated even by the opposition party in the state.
“Hence, they have been running from pillar to post in order to circumvent the mode of Primary which is yet to be announced by the National leadership of our Party.
“We believe and we know that the party leadership is in firm control of the Party and will stop at nothing to bring about fairness, equity and justice to all members as the ability of the APC in Ondo State to remain strong to win the forthcoming gubernatorial elections and subsequent elections is without doubt uppermost in their mind.”
