Ondo APC: What manner of primary?

The controversy trailing the Ondo State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary is yet to abate as aggrieved aspirants and their supporters continue to fault the process. The election committee headed by Jigawa State Governor Badaru Abubakar tried to impress it on the stakeholders that it was set out to conduct a free, fair and transparent shadow election. One of the measures put in place was the decentralisation of the accreditation of delegates. The delegates from the three senatorial districts were accredited at three different centres.
The decision to decentralise the accreditation, according to a member of the committee, who did not want his name in print,  was to avoid overcrowding at the voting centre. He said: “Asking over 3,000 delegates to assemble in a place for accreditation would create problem and slow down the process. As you can see, it was faster; as soon as delegates were cleared, they were taken to the voting centre in buses provided by the committee, amid tight security, to cast their votes. Both accreditation and voting were going on simultaneously”.
The officials that handled the accreditation at the three centres were from Abuja. The mode of operation was that the delegates from each local government were asked to line up. The officials called out the names from the list. The delegate would identify his/herself, either with a driving license or voter’s card or international passport. The accreditation officer would cross-check the name and picture in the identity. Where the names correspond with those on the list, the delegate was cleared and issued with a tag.
On getting to the voting centre, the delegate presents the tag to the presiding officers who issued him or her ballot paper. He or she moves to a secluded corner to thumb print the ballot for the candidate of his or her choice. After casting vote, the dele gate leaves the hall. No delegate was allowed within the premises of the voting centre.

This was the impression that made many observers to initially commend the committee for carrying out a peaceful, credible and transparent exercise. More so, the process was transmitted live by some television stations. Perhaps, that explained why some aspirants, including Olusola Oke, Tayo Alasoadura, and Victor Olabimtan did not hesitate to congratulate Mr Rotimi Akeredolu once his votes was one ahead  that of Dr Segun Abraham , the first runner-up.
Similarly, the observers who monitored the primary  applauded the exercise because they were ignorant of behind-the-scene manipulation associated with the poll. Three aspirants, Abraham, Oke and Boroffice have rejected the outcome of the primary, saying that it was marred by irregularities. They also alleged that a particular aspirant had the fore knowledge of the controversial delegates’ list.
Controversial delegates’ list
An indication that the results of the election would be contested by unfavoured aspirants was noticed at the accreditation centres. The major complaint was that the delegate list used for accreditation in some wards and local governments was different from those released to the aspirants by the National Secretariat.  The list, according to the complainants, was “doctored”; the names of authentic delegates were removed and substituted with names that were alien to party members at ward and local government level. At the SB Multi-purpose Hall, Ondo road, Akure, where delegates from Ondo South Senatorial District were screened, protest nearly marred the exercise.
A lady who claimed to be the APC woman senatorial leader, Ms Toyin Ajinde, was shocked to have found that her name was replaced with someone that was never known to be a party member. She told our correspondent that when he complained to the accreditation officers that the name written purportedly as woman leader doesn’t exist in the senatorial district and showed them her identity card, they didn’t listen. Despite the confirmation of party leaders present that she was the woman leader the accreditation officers advised her to write a petition to the chairman election committee to explain her ordeal. If she had written the letter it would be of no effect because the accreditation was supposed to end by 12 noon. There was no time for the chairman to investigate what went wrong. In a nutshell, the woman leader was disenfranchised.
Her case was just one among others who were denied the opportunity to participate in electing the APC flag bearer flag bearer for the governorship election in the state. At the same venue three impersonators were rough handled by authentic delegates. They were dragged out of the scene. Perhaps, the fear of being meted with similar treatment made others not to show up at the accreditation centre because there was a shortfall in the numbers of those that were accredited and the total number of delegates on the list. It was learnt that only 11 delegates were authentic on the list for Ese-Odo Local Government where Olusola Oke , one of the frontline aspirants hails from. Other names on the list were fictitious and they were accredited, it was alleged.
The story was similar at the accreditation centre for delegates from Ondo Central Senatorial District. The party leaders in Ondo West and Ondo East local governments felt short changed with the list of delegates used by the governorship primary election committee.  Their grouse was that the list used was quite different from the one used during the 2015 general election promised by the APC National Secretariat.
A member of Oke’s  group, Mrs Simisola Jegede-Ayinde, said her camp was jolted with the information that filtered in around 3a.m. on the voting day that the list given to the aspirants at the party headquarters, Abuja, was quite different from the one that accreditation officers would use. “We immediately called our candidate (Oke) to intimate him of the development. He told us that he was aware but there was nothing that anybody could at that time, few hours to the commencement of voting exercise. He said if he should raise objection at that critical point, it would be misinterpreted. He told us to remain calm and go and cast our votes”.
Mrs Jegede Ayoade, National Co-ordinator, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Change Movement, said: “As a democrat, Oke congratulated Akeredolu after he was declared winner of the primary because he had no evidence to fault the process. But after receiving reports from his agents with evidence to prove that he was ‘rigged out’, he had the right to condemn the exercise. To me, the September 3 governorship primary poll was a sham.  The illicit substitution of the delegates’ list officially given to the aspirants from Abuja less than 12 hours to the primary and allowing persons who were not on the list to participate in the primary had rendered the whole exercise a nullity. We were aware that the delegates’ list used for the primary was kept away from the aspirants and inflated with over 400 delegates who never emerged from any congress of the party as required by the constitution and guidelines”.
On his part, APC chairman, Ondo East Local Government, Mr Akintunde Temitope  had petitioned the Election Appeal Committee calling for the cancellation of the exercise. He premised his rejection of the election results on what he described as ‘doctored delegates’ list used for the exercise in his area.
Temitope said names of 47 per cent of legitimate delegates in Ondo East Local Government were either deleted or substituted with people who were not known to the party as executive committee members. He attached the list of delegates and marked out fictitious names in the list. Of the total  146 delegates from Ondo East Local Government, he identified 63 as fake delegates whose names were contained in the list used to conduct the primary.
A  breakdown  of the figure revealed that 8 fictitious names were included In the local government list; Ward 1( 5 out of 12 delegates); Ward 2 (all the 12 delegates); Ward 3 (5 out 0f 12 delegates); Ward 4 (6 out of 12 delegates); Ward 5 (6 out 0f 12 delegates); Ward 6 (4 out of 12 delegates); Ward 7 (5 out of 12 delegates); Ward 8 (5  out of 12 delegates); Ward 9 (4 out of 12 delegates) and Ward 10 (3 out of 12 delegates).
He narrates: “We were shocked to discover the massive fraud that characterised the September 3, governorship primary. A strange delegates’ list was introduced on the night of the election after everybody had gone to sleep only for us to wake up on the morning of election to see massive adulterate delegates list.”
Temitope said contrary to the agreement between the APC national secretariat and the aspirants that only the list of those who had voted in the National Assembly election and other previous primaries would be used for the governorship primary, but the list used was different. “The national secretariat of the party released a different delegates’ list which was not in tandem with those given to the aspirants, three days to the election precisely on Wednesday August 31, 2016.
“We wrote a petition to the Primary Election Chairman on the morning of the election and he reassured us 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 Ondo West Local Governments. We were shocked that the committee never honoured the pledge”, he stated.
Rejecting the result of the primary, the Chairman of the Ondo Central Senatorial District, Mr Adegboyega Adedipe said: “The results did not reflect the opinion of our party in the state.”  According to him the delegates’ list used was so padded that no meaningful results could be based on such warped list. Ondo East and Ondo West were the worst hit in Ondo Central Senatorial District. About 50 per cent of the legitimate delegates were disenfranchised.
“Many none delegates were seen voting with the connivance of corrupt security agencies. In view of the corrupt practices that dominated the primary, we in Ondo Central are calling on the appeal committee to investigate the huge fraud and order a fresh primary that will be a true reflection of the opinion of our party in the state.”
The Abraham’s campaign organisation said it  discovered  that about 40 names were fraudulently injected into the list in the constituency of its candidatprincipal. The fake delegates, according to the committee, were accredited and allowed to vote. It revealed further : “Not  less than 26 fake names were detected in Owo’s list. There 15 interlopers from Idanre while Odigbo also had 26 fake names.
Abraham alleged that the list was not released to him 21 days to the exercise contrary to the guidelines. He said he and other aggrieved aspirants got to know about the list during the accreditation.
He was absent at the voting centre. Though he was represented by agents but they refused to sign the results sheets. They left immediately after counting. A source said Abraham lost confidence in the process  the moment many delegates bombarded him with enquiries about the change of names on the list shortly before the commencement of accreditation.
An APC chieftain, Comrade Sola Iji, was also disappointed by the process. He said the delegate list was manipulated. Iji who spoke to our correspondent at the accreditation centre cited the case of Ondo South Senatorial District woman leader, Ms Ajinde whose name was substituted with unknown name. He said: “She is the woman leader of my senatorial district. As a party leader, I intervened on her behalf but all appeals fell on deaf ears. There were similar cases of authentic delegates whose names were missing on the list.”
Iji said on the surface value, the process appeared transparent but the exercise was bungled with multiple delegates’ list flying around among the aspirants and stakeholders.
What next for APC?
 Without prejudice to the report of the appeal committee, observers said the leadership of the APC should close rank and fashion out an in-house solution to the problem. They were of the view that upholding Akeredolu’s victory would not be acceptable to other aspirants that challenged the results before the appeal committee.  According to analysts APC cannot afford to lose any of the aspirants, especially the front liners if it must win the November 21 governorship election in Ondo State.
A chieftain of APC in Ondo State, Mr Bola Ajimuda said for the party to win the governorship election, the national leadership must consciously and deliberately step out to bridge the gap. According to him, “The primary has created cracks and gaps within the party. It is natural, but we must unite. They must ensure that every group is brought back. Even at the level of the party, structurally, they must ensure that we have a party that is strong enough to bid for power in the state”.
Ajimuda urged the stakeholders to work for the interest of the party.  He said: “I think that is what they should be doing now. They should extend their hands of fellowship across the river. They must return to Bourdillon and get the leader to lead the process for the enthronement of our party in the state”.
To a youth activist, Prince Adedeji Aderibgbe, the ultimate solution to the crisis created by the primary is outright cancellation of the exercise. “It will be catastrophe for the APC to uphold the result of the primary which had been rejected by the three leading contestants. The best thing is to go for a fresh primary where the election committee would create a level playing ground for all the contestants.
Aderibigbe warned that APC cannot afford to go into governorship election with a divided house and expect to win. “We should not play into the hands of the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which unfortunately is the ruling party in the state”.
One of the contestants, Alhaji Jamiu Ekungba, also warned against squandering the people’s goodwill by the APC on the altar of the post -primary crisis at the time the people of Ondo state are yearning for a change of government.
Ekungba appealed to the APC national leader Asiwaju Tinubu to use his influence in bringing all the contestants together and save the party from disintegration ahead of the November governorship election. He said President Muhammadu Buhari should show interest in the post-primary crisis rocking the Ondo state chapter of the APC. He appealed to both Tinubu and Buhari to quickly wade into the crisis restore order within the troubled chapter.
It is the consensus of analysts that APC should not be deceived in believing that all is well with the outcome of the primary that produced Akeredolu as party flag bearer. They advised the party to listen to every complaint put forward by the aggrieved aspirants in order to ensure party cohesion in preparation for the governorship poll.