Ondo 2020: Group gives condition for direct primaries

From Osagie Otabor, Akure

 

A support group for the re-election of Ondo State Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, the Ibi Giga Ambassadors, has said the only condition for direct primaries to be used by the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is for the updated party’s register of 2014 to be used.

This, it noted, is because two aspirants have begun illegal registration of members and issuance of APC membership cards.

The group, speaking yesterday at a news briefing in Akure, said the aspirants embarked on the illegal registration because of expectation that direct primary election would be adopted for the Ondo APC.

The body’s Deputy Director-General, Alaba Eniola-Ajipe, who read a letter addressed to APC National Chairman Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, said the 2014 membership register of the Ondo APC remained the authentic register to be used for direct primaries.

Eniola-Ajipe, a lawyer, urged Oshiomhole to stop the aspirants from injecting fictitious names into what he termed concocted membership register.

He said that the aspirants intended to use the concocted membership register in towns at the boundaries of Osun State, “as these towns are mostly populated by Osun indigenes living in Ondo State and doing legitimate business.”

Eniola-Ajipe warned that any illegal injection of names as being done by those he described as desperate elements was inimical to the good image of the APC and capable of creating avoidable and unnecessary crisis.

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He said: “The aspirants have perfected plans to ‘smuggle’ into Ondo State, people from Osun State, who will appear as eligible voters at their polling units on the day of the primary election if it 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 new party membership registration forms, which have been distributed secretly across the wards in Ondo State.”

“We are concerned that this unscrupulous action, if not quickly addressed, portends danger for the fortunes of our great party as we prepare for the primaries next month and the governorship election in October.

“We want to put it on record that the membership registration done in 2014 formed the APC register in Ondo State and it is the only known party membership register in existence in Ondo State.

The national secretariat is yet to give a directive for the update of membership registration in Ondo State.

“We want to put it 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 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 reactions that will affect the peace we are enjoying in Ondo State.”