Members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are protesting the release of the voters' register ahead of Saturday's primary election to elect a candidate for the governorship election coming up on November 16.
Many of the party members said what the leadership of the party did during the revalidation exercise was to disenfranchise them from voting for the candidate of their choice during the primary election.
Seven of the aspirants including Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, Chief Olusola Oke, SAN, Wale Akinterinwa, Prince Diran Iyantan, Prof Dayo Faduyile,
Hon. Gbenga Edema and Hon. Jimi Odimayo have petitioned the leadership of the party over the alleged plans to manipulate the Saturday primary election to choose a candidate for the party.
The party has raked in about N41.6 million from members as dues paid by members during the revalidation exercise.
However, the result of the exercise
showed that some wards in Akoko Northeast, Odigbo, Ese-Odo, and Okitipupa have no registered members of the party. The wards are Arogbo 1, 11, and 111 in Ese-Odo, Ikado II in Akoko Northeast, Ajue in Odigbo and Ayeka Igbidigbo in Okitipupa. In the Ore 11 ward, the APC has only two registered members.
The published revalidated membership list of the APC showed that a total of 172, 025 members would participate in the direct primary of the party.
The breakdown showed Ilaje local government, where Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa hails from, has 27,015 APC members while Akure South, the state capital has 8,441 revalidated members. Ondo West has 22,122 members while Ese-Odo has 1084 revalidated members.
Speaking on the discrepancies, the lawmaker representing Odigbo Constituency 1 in the Ondo State House of Assembly, Hon Ifabiyi Samuel Olatunji, said he was shocked to see only two revalidated members from his ward.
According to him, “It is a fraud of the highest order. In a situation in my ward, only two people registered, and two people were revalidated. It is a lie from the pit of hell.
“We have 11 wards and we have registered members of the party. We have over 1000 registered APC members in my ward. To my surprise, somebody brought only two registered members.
“This is a real shamble. We are building on zero level and fraud. Membership register is key to this election and situation where the membership register is faulty, the whole system is faulty.”
Also, a former Commissioner for Water Resources, Olotu Fatai, who hails from Akoko North East said the membership revalidation was for the deregistration of members in disguise.
His words “It is laughable. In my local government, the figure released is 6000 whereas we have APC registered members of over 40,000. Is membership revalidation equal to deregistration of members of the party?
“The Committee came to deregister members of the party. I cannot fathom any reason for doing this. You have a local government on water having over 20,000 while those of us on land given 6,000.
” The exercise was shrouded in secrecy. We didn't know when then came and the parameter used for the exercise. It seems the party has compromised the whole exercise and there is no way you can get credible results from the figures released.”
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