POLITICS
Ekiti Guber Aspirants Petition APC over Primaries
By Jude Opara, Abuja
The aggrieved seven aspirants who boycotted the primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti state which took place last week last Friday petitioned the National Secretariat of the party to cancel the exercise. The seven aspirants include; Dayo Adeyeye, Opeyemi Bamidele, Kayode Mojo, Femi Bamisile, Bamidele Faparusi, Demola Popoola and Afolabi Oluwasola.
The group who now operates under the aegis of the Ekiti G7 claims that the organizing committee that conducted the primaries skewed the exercise in favour of the aspirant alleged to have the blessing of Governor Kayode Fayemi.The aspirants who had a common petition addressed to the Chairman of the APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe state among others claimed that the sensitive materials including voting materials and result sheets were distributed to supporters of the eventual winner, Biodun Oyebanji.
However, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Ekiti Primary Election Organizing Committee, Alhaji Abubakar Badaru has denied the allegation that his committee manipulated the party’s primary election.Badaru who is also the governor of Jigawa state was at the National Secretariat of the APC last Friday to submit his report told newsmen that contrary to the claims of the other seven aspirants, the exercise was conducted in line with laid down guidelines of the party.
Badaru said; “We have submitted the results sheets and reports where they were conducted. In 166 wards, we had elections but in 11 wards the exercise was disrupted and we canceled those areas but in 166, people actively participate. And I think you all have the videos of what transpired in all the 166 wards except the 11. Even the 11 that had crisis, I am sure you have seen the videos.”
On the alleged manipulation by the seven aspirants who pulled out of the process, the governor said; “We landed on the 26th, I had meetings with all the aspirants and seven attended out of the eight and we discussed the guidelines and we agreed on all the terms. “What they are alleging probably is that party members loyal to the governor were chosen to serve as Returning Officers in various wards and local governments.
They raised that at the meeting and I told them that the guideline is to use the party people to do the job. We cannot hire or take people that are not from the party. I also told them to give us 20 people each from the party that they believed will do justice to them. And they provided those 20 list which we incorporated them into the Returning Officers. “But you can see from what happened that they are supposed to have agents in all the 177 wards. And this 11 wards that the primaries were disrupted were wards that had relationship with most of the aspirants. So, you can see if they have that power, to stop the congress, they could have done it also in the other 166 wards.”
While responding to a question whether the party will not experience what happened in the last exercise it had in Anambra state where the APC candidate, Sen. Andy Ubah scored more votes at the primary than he did at the governorship election, Badaru said he is sure of victory for his party when the election takes place in June. “The winner got 101,000 votes out of 180,000 registered members. So it is a very realistic fact. It is only 60-65% membership that comes out to vote which is very realistic. And for those of you that have been there on the field, you have gone round ward by ward by yourselves that it is actually people that voted. Before the election, I promised the aspirants that I will never receive a result written where people have not participated in the process. And that was why the 11 wards cannot be return to me because I knew there were violence and election didn’t take place. That is why I canceled them.”
The Jigawa state governor equally appealed to the aspirants that are aggrieved to sheath their sword and join the party to work for success in the forthcoming elections. “They are party members. What we expect them to do is to join hands with us so that we can continue to build the party and we continue to support the candidate that emerges. At the opening of my engagement with the aspirants, at the stakeholders meeting that we held in Ekiti State, I told them that power comes from God. And it is only God that will determine who will win. And if we take it in our hearts to be patient, God will certainly reward you. But if you chose to castigate and humiliate people, and cast insults on people, God is watching. You will certainly harvest what you have done because the truth will always come out. And we did this primary with utmost fear of God. And those that knows me know I cannot write result for anybody,” Badaru concluded. Meanwhile, the protesting aspirants and their supporters are billed to organize a mass protest at the National Secretariat of the APC to further drive home their demand for a fresh primary election.
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, National Chairman, Independence National Electoral Commission (INEC) has appealed to political parties, candidates, and supporters to maintain peace during the governorship election in Ondo State.
Yakubu made the appeal while monitoring the 2024 Ondo State Mock Accreditation held on Wednesday across the three senatorial district of the state.
Report says that INEC is scheduled to conduct the Ondo State Governorship Election on Nov.
16, 2024, with 18 political parties to participate in the election.The INEC chairman, who said that the exercise was part of the commission’s preparation, said the maintenance of peace would enable the commission to conduct a free and fair election.
He also said that the mock accreditation was to further test the functionality of their system.
“In the last election, our machines performed optimally but we can not take that for granted.
“We will ensure that all the polling units open on time so that voters will not come and wait for INEC officials and materials.
“And we have tested the integrity of the machines, it is not the matter of early deployment, but also early accreditation.
“We are doing our best as an electoral commission and others should also do their best, particularly political parties and their candidates.
“I want to appeal to political parties, candidates and their supporters to ensure that they maintain the peace that will enable us to deploy and conclude the process in good time.
“And also to announce the candidate people of Ondo State are choosing as their governor on Saturday,” he said.
Earlier, Mr Usman Isiaka Taiwo, who was accredited at the Ijapo High School, Akure, Ward 4 Unit 41, applauded INEC for the conduct.
“There is no delay in the exercise, and I will come along with my family to cast our votes for the candidate of our choice,” he said.
Also, Mrs Adebimpe Bankole, who was accredited at Alagbaka Primary School, Akure, Ward 5 Unit 18, scored INEC 80 per cent for the mock exercise.
“I am satisfied with the process because I did not waste any time before I did my accreditation.
“I would have given them 100 per cent but I can’t, rather I will give them 80 per cent because they have done well.
“By Gods grace, I will come out on Saturday, Nov. 16 for the election proper to cast my vote,” she said.
The INEC national chairman visited Ijapo High School, Akure, Ward 4 Unit 41; and Alagbaka Primary School, Akure, Ward 5 Unit 18.
Ward 10 Unit 12 in Owena, and Ward 10, Unit 1, Aiyetoro/ Owena, Idanre Local Government Area in Ondo Central Senatorial District, were also visited.
Yakubu also visited two Local Government Area offices of the commission including Ile-Oluji/ Okeigbo in Ondo North Senatorial District. (NAN)
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that the claim by Atiku Abubakar, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, that he did not lose the election but stolen, was most comical.
Mr Felix Morka, the party’s National Publicity Secretary said this, in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to comments made by Abubakar on the outcome of the election.
Abubakar, also a former vice president, on his X handle, stated that he did not lose the 2023 presidential election, claiming the election was stolen from him.
Morka, in his reaction, described Abubakar as Africa’s most infamous presidential election loser, noting that since serving as vice-president, he had lost election to every elected president.
“Six times in the last 17 years, Nigerians have declared their verdict of untrust and lack of sportsmanship on Abubakar’s presidential candidacy, and roundly rejected him at the polls.
“Abubakar’s long record of electoral defeat was serially certified by Nigeria’s highest courts, sealing his rejection by the electorate with judicial and constitutional finality.
“However, a clearly unabashed Abubakar continues to lay a bogus claim that he did not lose the 2023 presidential election. That is beyond comical,” the APC spokesman said.
He said that this was so as the former vice president probably believed that he was cheated out of all previous five presidential elections that he also lost.
Morka added that Abubakar’s inability to come to terms with the reality of his rejection cuts an ominous portrait of extreme and disturbing political desperation.
He added that Nigeria’s intelligent and discerning electorate would not act against their best interest by electing Abubakar into office.
According to Morka, the former vice president is a central and recurrent player in some of our country’s most vile roll call of corruption scandals perpetrated by the PDP administrations.
“He was the vice president in the government that created crooked and viscerally corrupt petrol subsidy hydra-headed dragon that has crippled our country’s economy,
“And laid the foundation for the endemic corruption and inefficiency that have undermined our power sector through the years.
“His desperation to be president can only be understood in the context of his determination to complete the full subversion of Nigeria’s economic life from where he left off as vice president.
“Nigerians will not entrust their country to someone who puts his selfish interest, and the interest of his cronies over and above the national interest,” Morka said.
He added that having demystified himself with his recent release of what he would have done differently if he was the president, showed that he had nothing to offer Nigerians.
Morka added that from Abubakar’s release, it was obvious that all he would had offered was his stale, tired, tested and failed economic ideas that were at polar relevance to the current existential economic challenges facing the country.
He added that the former vice president had a chance to execute whatever economic ideas he may have ever had, but failed to do so.
He further added that as vice president, Abubakar also failed to get his party, the PDP, to do so in all of its 16 years government.
“Abubakar thinks himself capable of fixing Nigeria but cannot fix the rot and hopeless dysfunction in his PDP,” the APC spokesman said.
He urged Nigerians to be steadfast in support of the APC-administration of President Bola Tinubu and valiant efforts to restore vitality to our economy for the good of all Nigerians.(NAN)
Gov. Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State, on Tuesday submitted N156.5 billion supplementary appropriation bill for 2024 fiscal year to the State House of Assembly for approval.Mr Danladi Jatau, the Speaker of the House, announced this during plenary in Lafia.He said that the supplementary appropriation bill would enable the state government to provide the much needed dividends of democracy to the people of the state.
Mr Suleiman Azara, the Majority Leader of the House, moved a motion for the bill to scale first reading which was seconded by the Deputy Minority Leader, Mr Onarigu Onah Kana. The Assembly read the bill and unanimously passed it through the first Daily Asset recalls that in Dec.2023, the House approved N199.8 billion budget the for 2024 fiscal year.The supplementary appropriation bill if approved, would take the Nasarawa State Government 2024 budget to N356.5 billion. ( NAN)
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