Road to 2023: APC aspirants, masses abort secret voting in Oyo North, demand direct primary
All is not well in Oyo North Senatorial District as contenders face off in the primary that will produce the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the district.
The frontline senatorial aspirants in the district are Shina Peller, representing Iseyin/Iwajowa/Kajola/
Oyo North has 13 local government areas, comprising 10 in Oke-Ogun Zone, and three in the Ogbomoso zone. As gathered, the party agreed that the 2022 primary for the senatorial candidate to emerge for APC should be held at Iseyin District Grammar School (IDGS), Iseyin on Saturday.
The officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission were sighted at the IDGS. But four among the five senatorial aspirants and many delegates were at IDGS, waiting for the commencement of the exercise when information got to them that a secret primary was already ongoing at a hotel within the senatorial district.
The aspirants immediately moved to the hotel and aborted on the grounds that the hotel was not the venue agreed on by the party and that it was not the venue communicated to the INEC.
All the four aspirants from the Oke-Ogun zone condemned the development and raised the alarm that the delegate list had been doctored to allegedly favour Senator Abdulfatai Buhari from Ogbomoso, questioning why he was the only one that was in the hotel for the primary.
A serving member of the House of Representatives, Shina Peller, in an interview with reporters, said: “Iseyin District Grammar School is the venue that we all agreed for the primary election for APC House of Representatives and Senate. All the delegates are here with their cards since 10 am and all the aspirants both House of Representatives and Senate are all here, except a serving Senator.
“But to our surprise, we were briefed that there was another kangaroo primary going on in one hotel along Oyo-Iseyin Road and we moved to the venue and its unfortunate that we met them there with some unaccredited delegates as well as fake ballot papers, and accreditation tags that have no passports. This is absolutely wrong.
“We are supposed to follow the guidelines of our party. There should be respect for our party and our people. This is totally unacceptable. We don’t have trust in the whole process again. What we need now is a direct primary. Our people have been here since Thursday for the state House of Assembly primary. They were also here yesterday (Friday), for the House of Representatives primary. They waited till 11 pm before they were chased away from this premises.
“This morning, we have been here for Senatorial primaries and up till now, after 3:00 pm we have not seen any officials of our party, saddled with the responsibility,” he said.
The other three senatorial aspirants, Saheed Alaran, Adeboyin Adeola, and Shola Ogunbode appealed to the leadership of the party for quick intervention over the matter, saying “We are not satisfied with the current situation of things here in our district.”
As ot the time of filing this report, Senator Buhari could not be reached on his mobile phone for comment on the development. (The Sun)
