Nnamdi Felix/ Abuja

The controversy surrounding the conduct of the governorship election primaries by the Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos state resumed before a federal high court in Abuja where one of the aspirants and former minister of state for Defence, Musiliu Obanikoro, has accused a chieftain of the party in the state, Chief Olabode George and the party’s governorship candidate of the party, Mr. Jimi Agbaje, of recruiting armed thugs to achieve their aims at the party’s primaries which held on 8th December.

Obanikoro made this allegation in an affidavit he filed before a Federal High Court in Abuja in support of his suit numbered, FHC/ABJ/CS/994/2014, where he’s challenging the conduct of the governorship primaries in which Agbaje was declared as the winner.

•Senator Musiliu Obanikoro

The former minister stated: “I also saw the police recover five guns and rounds of ammunition and live cartridges from the thugs brought by Chief Olabode George and Mr. Jimi Agbaje, a co-aspirant.”
The former minister scored 343 votes to come second behind Agbaje who polled 432 votes to clinch the party’s ticket. Three other candidates also participated in the poll.

He wants the court to nullify the primaries and to order a fresh one to be conducted on the grounds of alleged electoral irregularities which he claimed, marred the December 8, 2014 exercise.

At the hearing of his suit on Wednesday, the trial judge, Justice Ahmed Mohammed, after listening to the submissions of Obanikoro’s counsel, Chief Chris Uche, a senior advocate of Nigeria, ordered the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission to appear in court on December 23 to show cause why the results of that primaries should not be nullified and why he should not make an order of interim injunction to restrain the party from presenting or accepting any name as the PDP governorship candidate in Lagos State pending the determination of the suit.

The judge however declined to make any exparte orders as requested by the former minister but ordered the minister to put the defendants on notice for them to appear in court to show cause why the order should not be granted.

Obanikoro alleged that the election was marred by electoral irregularities such as over-voting, intimidation of his delegates by thugs loyal to George and Agbaje as well as improper accreditation of delegates.

He averred that there were 806 delegates accredited for the primaries but that surprisingly from the 806 accredited delegates; the electoral officers returned a total number of 866 votes and added that the accreditation of delegates which ought to last between 8am and 12noon as stipulated by the Electoral Guidelines published by the PDP, did not start until as late as 6.30pm.

In an affidavit personally deposed to by him, Obanikoro stated, “That the thugs earlier brought by Chief Olabode George and Mr. Jimi Agbaje, a co-aspirant, at this point began to disrupt the venue by throwing bottles, stones and firing gunshots in the direction of the delegates loyal to me and preventing other delegates loyal to me from entering the venue”.

He also added that the gunshots attracted another detachment of policemen, who engaged the thugs in a gun and teargas battle during which many of the delegates loyal to him ran for their dear lives to avoid being caught in the crossfire between the police and the armed thugs.

“That I know as a fact that many of my delegates who ran for their dear lives in the ensuing violence and gun battle never returned and were consequently disenfranchised as it took the police several hours to restore some semblance of normalcy”

He also stated that he saw the police recover five guns and rounds of ammunitions and live cartridges from the thugs brought by Chief Olabode George and Mr. Jimi Agbaje , a co-aspirant.