A Contentious primary

Thus, with the authentic delegates list in their possession, all the spirants had hoped for a fraud free primary election. Thus, when the results reflected a keenly contested race after the polls, many partly attributed it to strict adherence to the authentic list of delegates by Governor Mohammed Badaru led APC Electoral Committee. Against all expectations, Akeredolu was again elected candidate of the party for the November 26 governorship election, defeating Abraham by 34 votes.

Olusola Oke who decamped from PDP to APC few months before the primary election also pulled a surprise, scoring 576 votes to come third, beating Ajayi Boroffice another favourite for the ticket to the fourth position with 471 votes. Abayomi, who set off the storm of a ‘favoured candidate’ turned out to be a lightweight, garnering only five votes in the primary election.

Though the victory of Akeredolu was a shocker to many party members, including Abraham and Oke, there was general backslapping for a “job well done” by party members and other stakeholders at the end of the primary election. However, the toga of ‘transparency’ the election was clocked with began to unfurl less than 24 hours later with allegations of padded delegates list and recruitment of mercenaries who were paid about 10,000 to vote for the victorious candidate.

The allegation of use of ‘mercenaries’ gained traction when some of the alleged participants were shown on national television, confessing how they were recruited, provided with party’s identification tag, assisted to gain entrance into the venue of the election and went on to vote in the primary. The allegation of rigging led to calls for revision of the primary by other leading aspirants in the primary.

Abraham, through the Director General of the O’Abraham Campaign Organisation, Prince Olu Adegboro told journalists about three days after primary that the election was fraudulently conducted. While noting that as a democrat, he had congratulated Akeredolu, who was declared winner despite palpable disbelief and surprise on the outcome of the primary election by him and his supporters, Abraham said, “The news, however, is that, sordid and staggering facts have since emerged on how the process leading to the primary election was manipulated and compromised. It is now beyond doubt that the delegate list used on the day of the primary election was doctored and strangely injected with a mind blowing number of delegates who are neither who are executive members of our party nor statutory delegates.”

Oke and Borrofice also toed the same line, calling for cancellation of the primary over allegations that it was rigged to favour the victorious aspirant.

The Fraud in the Primary Election

The aspirants took their complaints to the Appeal Committee set up by the party to consider complaints emanating from the primary. It was gathered that the Committee was inundated with different petitions from participants in the primary and other Ondo APC chieftains, detailing allegations of fraud which riddled the election.

The Committee received six petitions with three complaints coming from three aspirants; Chief Olusola Oke, Dr. Olusegun Abraham and Prof. Ajayi Boroffice; the Chairman of Ondo Central APC, Mr. Adegboyega Adedipe, his Ondo East counterpart, Mr. Akintunde Temitope, and Mrs. Toyin Ajinde, a delegate. The petitions include complaints that over 383 names were fraudulently injected into the delegates list that was used to conduct the primary election.

They also alleged that over 300 delegate tags were issued to non-delegates to allow them to vote in the primary election as was discovered after the exercise. They also alleged that a new copy of the delegates list doctored to include the imposters was given to aspirants by the election committee of APC around 10.30pm.

The aggrieved aspirants also though they rejected the new list, it was too late to pull out of the primary, hence their decision to participate in it. Based on overwhelming evidence of fraud, the Committee at the end of its assignment recommended the cancellation of the primary. The Committee pointed out that “serious and weighty identified irregularities,” in the primary cannot be ignored though there was substantial adherence to stipulated guidelines in the conduct of the exercise.

The Committee therefore recommended that a rerun primary should be held immediately to beat the deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Committee, INEC. Also, to make the new primary a tidier affair, the committee directed the party leadership to come up with a properly harmonised list of delegates acceptable to all contenders. Indeed, it advised that delegates’ list, distributed to aspirants in Abuja shortly before the controversial primary should be used for the new exercise. It also said the list should be released early to aspirants. “In view of the change mantra of this administration, it is pertinent that the party blazes the trail by refusing to condone a less than perfect exercise,” noted the Committee.

The road to emergence of a “rigged candidate” for Ondo election
Akeredolu promptly rejected recommendation that the primary election should be cancelled resulted. In the same vein, members of the party’s National Working Committee were also divided on the recommendation. The division over what to do with the reports of the appeal committee, it was gathered, delayed the submission of Akeredolu’s name to INEC by the party. But the Oyegun led NWC eventually met on 22 September to consider the report. It was gathered that members of the NWC had voted five to six in favour of upholding the recommendation of the appeal committee nullification of the 3 September exercise and conduct of a fresh primary.

But Oyegun was reported to have overruled majority of the NWC to submit Akeredolu’s name to INEC, thereby igniting the ongoing crises. APC National Vice Chairman (Southwest) Chief Pius Akinyelure identified Odigie-Oyegun, National Secretary Mai Mala Buni and the National Organising Secretary, Senator Osita Izunaso, as the persons behind the act the rigging of the delegates’ list and manipulation of the process to favour Akeredolu.

In the statement which the APC National Vice Chairman said was endorsed by six National Working Committee (NWC) members he accused the trio of using NWC meetings to usurp powers and unilaterally take decisions that their offices did not give them the power to take.

Specifically, he accused Izunaso of single-handedly altering the list of delegates that was eventually adopted for the election in favour of Akeredolu. Izunaso, he added, acted with the support of Oyegun and Buni, though other members of the NWC opposed them.

He added that following the complaints which followed the primary, the NWC decided to submit the name of an interim substitute to INEC as place holder until a fresh primary was conducted. But the decision, he said was neglected as Oyegun, Buni and Izunaso “blindsided the other members to submit Akeredolu’s name in spite of a six to five votes in favour of presenting the substitute name”.