The Monday Discourse
As the Appeal Panel set up to review complaints in the September 3 gubernatorial Primary of the All Progressives Congress in Ondo State is set to submit its report, the fear that doomsday awaits the party unless the crisis is resolved in earnest, pervades the atmosphere, writes James Sowole
With the initial conceding of defeat by the anointed aspirant in the Saturday September 3, 2016 gubernatorial primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) of Ondo State, by Dr. Olusegun Abraham, everyone had thought the stage was already set for the November 26 battle between the winner of the exercise, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) and the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). A majority of observers had already tagged the election: ‘The Battle of SANs’
Those who gave into that mindset by Abraham, who scored 635 as against the 669 votes polled by Akeredolu in a keenly contested election that involved 24 aspirants, may not be totally wrong because the winner (Akeredolu) was the only top contender that openly confronted and condemned one of the national leaders of the APC, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for allegedly endorsing the first runner up (Abraham) few weeks to the primary election.
During the controversies that ensued preparatory to the primary election and which led to the postponement of the exercise twice, Akeredolu vehemently opposed Tinubu’s action on pages of major national newspapers and the airwaves were awash daily with messages from him, condemning any attempt to foist a candidate on the party in Ondo State.
The senior advocate, who in one of the interviews boasted that he would win the primary election, declared that Tinubu would be shocked by the time he hears the results of the election. Truly, all that Akeredolu needed to bring his prediction to reality was the 34 votes that he scored above his closest rival.
Series of reports that preceded the voting proper pointed to the fact that top aspirants were desperate to outwit one another, using all manners of tactics to attract delegates. No doubt money was believed to have exchanged hands in the horse-trading that followed and all the major contenders were involved in this practice. But in attracting the delegates, it was one thing to get the money to be distributed and another thing was to even get the delegates to buy into their candidacy.
In order not to be caught napping, top contenders were alleged to have ‘kidnapped’ delegates and lodged them in hotels within and outside the state for days to keep them away from their opponents. Still not sure of their commitment, aspirants were further alleged to have made delegates to swear to an oath before they were given money. All these were pre- voting events, which no aspirant could own up to and which the electoral committee was not concerned about.
Thus, to everybody in the main hall of the Ondo State International Event Centre, The Dome and those that watched the voting proper live on Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) and TV Continental, the exercise supervised by a team led by the Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Badaru Abubakar, could conveniently pass the transparency test. This reason may have been responsible for the initial action of the first runner up, Abraham, who on Sunday conceded defeat and commended the leader of the electoral team for a job well done.
“My special regards and admiration for Alhaji Badaru Abubakar, the Governor of Jigawa state and his team, for their sterling quality and integrity in conducting the APC governorship primary in Ondo state,” he said.
Continuing, he added: “I also thank my teeming supporters for showing maximum solidarity throughout the campaign till now. I am not unaware of the pain you feel right now – with so much fervor – you all took our message of industrialising Ondo State to every nook and cranny. I pray that our God will bring the much-needed prosperity we seek to Ondo state in earnest.
“I will not turn my back to my loving people of Ondo. I will continue to contribute my quota to the development of our state in any way God directs. The APC is a party consistently determined to bring prosperity and good governance to the people of Nigeria, and I will ever remain loyal to our party and its ideals and principles,”Abraham stated.
But the bubble burst when the APC Central Senatorial Chairman, Mr. Adegbooyega Adedipe announced his resignation from his position and later became one of the three signatories in a petition alleging irregularities in the list of delegates from Ondo East and Ondo West Local Governments. Other signatories which apparently revealed the position Chief Olusola Oke, who came third with 583 votes in the primary are the Chairman of the APC in Ondo East, Mr. Akintunde Samuel and Mr. Adeola Ademulegun for Ondo West.
In the petition, the aggrieved APC Leaders called for outright cancellation of the Saturday primaries to pave the way for fresh exercise that would reflect true reality of the election.
“A strange delegate list was introduced on the night of the election after everybody has gone to sleep only for us to wake up in the morning of the election to see a massively corrupted delegate list. Names of 47 per cent of the delegates in Ondo East were either deleted or substituted with people, who are unknown to the party as executive members. Some of the injected names are not even aware of the development and so did not come for the primary election.
“We wrote a petition to the primary Election Committee Chairman on the morning of the election and it reiterated that only people that had been voting in previous primaries would be allowed to vote with a promise to stand down the voting process for Ondo East and West Local
Government Areas. We were shocked that the committee never honoured the pledge.
Government Areas. We were shocked that the committee never honoured the pledge.
“In all, a total number of 64 names were injected into the delegate list. The names were unknown to the party. For instance, somebody who never contested any election and some even unknown to the party suddenly became ward chairmen in wards four, six, two and seven of Ondo East Local Government. Our total valid delegates are 135 out of which 64 were disenfranchised, meaning 47 of the delegates on the unlawful list were illicit voters.
“The absence of many legitimate voters paved the way for ‘See and Buy’ voters that were eventually used to further corrupt the process. Many voters were recruited from the road side including okada riders, bread-sellers, street hawkers and others, who were not party members
but just loitering around the venue of the primary election.”
but just loitering around the venue of the primary election.”
The aggrieved APC members maintained that they were not against the beneficiary of the alleged fraud, but that of the fraudulent process that produced manipulated result. They urged the Appeal Committee to order the use of the same premises for accreditation as the voting centre during the re-run primaries to avoid the repeat of the situation, where ‘compromised’ security agents loaded non-delegates to voting centre and gave them delegate tags.”
The allegation of the APC leaders was supported by a woman and two men, who on TV Continental confessed that they were not delegates but given money to vote during the primary.
Thus, towing the path of Oke, Abraham, who had earlier conceded defeat made a recant and rejected the results of the election in a statement signed by the Director-General of his campaign organisation, Olu Adegbooro. He alleged that the delegates list for the election was doctored and injected with non-executive members of the party.
Abraham specifically pointed out that the process leading to the primary election was manipulated and compromised, saying “the outcome of the election is “unacceptable”, considering the plethora of staggering facts of anomalies that have since emerged to the demerit of the exercise”.
The statement further read in part: “It is no longer news that as a true democrat, imbued with the best spirit of sportsmanship, I congratulated Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, who purportedly emerged as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the September 3rd gubernatorial primary election in Ondo State in the face of palpable disbelief and surprise on the outcome of the primary election by my numerous supporters.
“The news, however, is that sordid and staggering facts have since emerged on how the process leading to the primary election was manipulated and compromised. It is now beyond doubt that the delegate list used on the day of the primary election was doctored and strangely injected with a mind-blowing number of delegates that are neither executive members of our party nor statutory delegates. To say the least, the manipulation of the delegate list, highly skewed accreditation process and the entire processes leading to the conduct of the primary election has cast the darkest stain on the result of the primary election held on the 3rd September, 2016.
“Against this background, coupled with the change and integrity that our party preaches and practices and having widely consulted with my numerous supporters, I have reached the hour of decision to fall back on the internal mechanism of our great party to seek redress so that the end of justice will be served and more importantly, our democracy may endure.
“To this end, the outcome of the September 3rd APC governorship primaries in Ondo State is unacceptable and I hereby appeal against same. The allegations that have sadly pelted the supposedly free and fair Saturday exercise, where 24 aspirants battled to nick the party’s ticket, include but not limited to delegates list tampering, fake delegates incursion, disenfranchising of rightful delegates and smuggling of illegal ballot papers into ballot count,” he said
Similarly, the lawmaker representing Ondo North Senatorial District, Senator Ajayi Boroffice, called for the cancellation of the results of the exercise. Boroffice, who polled 471 votes and came fourth in the election, said he was informed that those who were not delegates voted in the election.
He expressed this position in his Oka country home during a reception rally organised for him by the lawmakers representing Akoko South West/South East federal constituency, Babatunde Kolawole, who also said the election was characterised with malpractices.
He said, “Before the conclusion of the election, I kept hearing the rumour that the delegate list had been infiltrated and doctored. That there were even some people, who were not accredited, and who were not even delegates but were given tags and induced to come and vote and this has been substantiated. This is unfortunate. I am in support of total cancellation of the election. The election should be cancelled while a fresh election should hold,” Borrofice said.
The senator, however, pledged to remain in the party by working towards ensuring that the party wins the governorship election, even if the result of the election is not cancelled. “I am a loyal party man. I had the opportunity to leave the party in 2012 but I didn’t. I was one of the three people that remained then, among the aspirants. I am not in this party to be a governor. I am in this progressive party to help build Nigeria and if I don’t become governor, another person will be governor, as long as the process is free, fair and credible,” Boroffice stated.
Two other aspirants, Senator Tayo Alasoadura of Ondo Central Senatorial District and a legal practitioner, Dr. Tunji Abayomi had congratulated Akeredolu for winning the primary election of the party.
Alasooadura said the exercise that produced the party’s candidate was credible and transparent urging other aspirants to support him so that the party can go on to win the November 26 governorship poll and send the PDP packing from the Government House.
Abayomi, who faulted the petitions written against the return of Akeredolu in an interview, said the alleged error on the delegates’ list used for the primary had nothing to do with the victory of the winner of the election. The aspirant insisted that the primary was free, fair and transparent, adding that Akeredolu deserved the victory. He noted that if there was a problem with the delegates’ list, it must been caused by the party at the state level.
“If there is a problem with the delegates’ list, it has absolutely nothing to do with the victory of Akeredolu. It is possible that there is a problem with the list but that problem is unintended. It is not by Akeredolu. But if it is intended, it will be the party itself in Ondo State because the party structure in Ondo State was not favourably disposed to Akeredolu and they already have their own candidate. My view is that providence appeared to have worked against the intention of the party in Ondo State because they intended to favour a certain aspirant,” he said.
Anxiety has however gripped the party stakeholders as the Appeal Panel set up to look into various complaints emanating from the exercise and headed by Mrs. Helen Benbager from Benue State is set to submit its report. There were even allegations that some leaders of the party were already working to ensure that the report favoured a particular interest. Though the committee was yet to make its report public, membership of the party were already divided into two broad sections and had been circulating rumour to favour their sides respectively.
While a section of the party members were already circulating that the return of Akeredolu had been affirmed, the other said the panel had recommended that the entire results should not be jettisoned but that rerun election would hold for delegates in Ondo East and Ondo West since complaints were mainly on the delegates from the two local governments.
Speaking, the Chairman of the Elders Forum of the party, Senator Olorunnimbe Farukanmi said it was a pity that the reported allegations arose after some aspirants had congratulated Akeredolu describing it as very saddening.
Farukanmi, who said it had been established that the two sides can never be pleased at the same time when the report of the panel is released, said leadership of the party should sit back and find an amicable resolution to the matter so that the party can win the gubernatorial election, which is the ultimate.
“Wherever it goes, the APC is in crisis unless the two sides agree to work together. The stakeholders must find a way to settle the matter because the election is very critical,” he said.
Another chieftain of the party, who did not want to be mentioned, said the party was already doomed in the state if the results of the primary were tampered with. He said the time was no longer there for the party to conduct another primary election.
The chieftain said if the APC, which the people were already looking to for a rescue from the years of misrule in the state is still grappling with issues of primary almost three weeks after the PDP candidate had been meeting various interests groups for votes.
“It is unfortunate that the party has defeated itself. Unless we resolve this matter in time, all of us would be losers because the PDP is already in the field to take advantage of the situation,” he warned.
Abayomi, who also contested for the ticket of the party said if the results of the primary was annulled, it would have a negative effect on the party and the people because it would confer unnecessary uncertainty on the process. He said the decision would lead to disappointment and general apathy on the voter, that were already yearning for positive change.
“If the primary is cancelled and another one conducted, the results of the new exercise would not be acceptable to the losers,” he said.
Publicity Secretary of the party in the state, Omo’Oba Abayomi
Adesanya, also warned that if the governorship primary of the party was nullified as being canvassed by some people, the party would lose the November election, stating that such action would lead to unending crisis in the party.
Adesanya, also warned that if the governorship primary of the party was nullified as being canvassed by some people, the party would lose the November election, stating that such action would lead to unending crisis in the party.
“Cancelling the Ondo State governorship primary held on September 3 will not be in the best interest of the party in the state. I want those, who are clamouring for its cancelation to know that such step will lead to disunity, acrimony and unending crisis that will derail the party from winning the November 26 governorship election,” he said.
Adesanya advised all the aggrieved aspirants to embrace dialogue in the interest of the party and the teeming supporters of the party in the state.
“The aspirants are leaders in Ondo State and we hold them in high esteem. They have the rights to ponder on the primary but we should not throw away the baby with the birth water.
“I want to appeal to the aspirants in the interest of the party and the people of Ondo State, who had contributed to the development of the party, to sheath their swords and allow the party to move on. The present crisis should be seen as a disagreement between twins, which we will get over soon.
“We are confident that APC will win the governorship election because the party is the only alternative to the ruling party in the state and the people of Ondo State are eagerly yawning for the emergence of an APC government in the state,” he said.
Although it is expected that after every such exercise, there are the aggrieved persons, who would for one reason or the other, reject the outcome of the exercise, the thing with Ondo APC’s debacle, especially the argument being canvassed in support of a cancellation of the results belies logic. Granted, there might have been some sort of manipulations, of course from all the concerns, the result of the exercise has not shown that a particular concern was overtly favoured. Instead, it showed an election that was keenly contested with everyone struggling to outdo one another with paltry votes as edge.
The unfortunate thing about the Ondo exercise or the very reason there is so much going on against the emergence of Akeredolu was because the grounds had been prepared for a particular candidate to emerge against all odds, but the result favoured someone else. QED! In other words, because the expectation of some people was not met since they are subtly laying ownership to the party, the process was flawed, else, it must be their way.
To think that all the aspirants had with them, a list of the delegates ahead of the exercise showed a degree of transparency that is alien to the APC and its affiliates in the past. When placed side-by-side with the process that produced Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos in 2015, then, the Ondo APC would be commended for a good job. Not one candidate knew who the delegates were in Lagos in 2015 and yet, they all led to the exercise as if they had some magic to perform. What with the result? It was a sweeping landslide.
Therefore, the foul-crying about the process that just produced Akeredolu is misplaced, selfish, undemocratic and completely unprogressive. It shows the tendency of a defective leadership, which throws out everything each time a particular concern does not go its way. This is where the intervention of the collective is crucial before the greed of a few lands everyone in bigger crisis. Time is not on its side and party leadership must step in intelligently to stem the looming disaster.
