A pressure group within Ekiti State All Progressives Congress, Ekiti Newbreed Politicians Association has described the May 12 governorship primary of the party, which produced Dr. Kayode Fayemi, as “a charade and fraud,” saying it will explore all legal means to make the victory short-lived.
The ENPA, in a press statement issued on Friday by its coordinator, Prince Seyi Ogunrogba, said the group had empirical evidence to prove that the election was massively rigged through a touted ‘federal might’ and that the Governor Tanko Al-Makura led-electoral committee was hugely compromised.
The group tasked the APC National Working Committee headed by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun to immediately review the exercise with a view to ascertaining the true winner of the primary election.
It particularly lambasted South-West leaders of the party “for setting aside honour and yielding themselves to the subterfuge of unworthy pots of porridge from Abuja, to upturn the common will of majority of party delegates.”
“We are disappointed in how our party’s primary was reduced to a fraudulent carnival, only to please a character that the Ekiti people do not want; and we, the young intellectuals in the party watched in horror, how the primary election was traded away by leaders of the party, particularly from the South-West; leaders whom Asiwaju Bola Tinubu leads, ordinarily leads.”
“Again, we want to challenge the Nasarawa State Governor, Al-Makura, who conducted the primary, to, in the spirit of the ongoing Ramadan, come and address the press and swear by his children, that he conducted a free and fair primary election in Ekiti.
“Besides, the Presidency too has demonstrated in the way it condoned perfidy in the course of the election, that it cared less about victory as with who gets the party ticket; but using all legal means, we shall ensure that this robbery of a victory is short-lived.
“The delegates are noble indigenes of Ekiti; they knew who the Ekiti people wanted and came to vote for him, only for them to get this kind of subversion of their will. They are all stoic and are waiting to see how this fraud will prevail,” the ENPA lamented.
The group, however, added, “We are not destroyers or nihilists but faithful young party members who are on the side of justice. We all witnessed the rerun primary election and noticed a lot of oddities which we appeal to the conscience of the party leadership at the national level to review and correct, before it is too
late.”
