*Photo: Olamilekan Akeem Ademolake*
An aspirant for the House of Representatives in Abeokuta South Federal Constituency under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the last Saturday primary, Olamilekan Akeem Ademolake has kicked against the results of the poll.
Ademolake accused the party leadership of conniving to unconstitutionally announced Hon Afolabi Afuape as the winner of the primary, arguing the action was fraudulent
The aspirant pointed out that the action of the party leaders has truncated the expected genuine democracy to produce candidate to represent the party at the general election in 2027 and therefore called for the cancellation of the results.
He stated that the primary conducted in all the wards in the local government was nothing but electoral fraud which needs to be addressed constitutionally in the interest of peace and transparency
‘’The party [APC] proposed that a primary election be held in every ward according to the electoral law, had been truncated and basically changed to unconstitutional ratification in Ogun State’’, he wrote.
‘What the electoral law stated was that a direct primary should be conducted as embedded in the electoral act. Ratification or Imposition has no place in the electoral law hence, rendered such move as invalid, null and void’.
‘’Governor Dapo Abiodun Imposed and directed his loyalist to go all out and ratify Afolabi Afuape as the sole candidate for Abeokuta South Federal Constituency House of Representative candidate’, he alleged.
‘‘It’s unconstitutional for any Governor to make imposition or ratification of any candidate when the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria has verbally made a pronunciation that any imposition or ratification will be treated as null & void with outright cancellation’’, Ademolake added.
The aspirant stressed that as a result of the alleged Imposition and ratification, fighting erupted, adding that it was through the grace of God that no life was lost, however, said some party members sustained injuries in ward 3 (Isale Abetu), ward 6 (Itoko) and ward 7 (Ijaye) respectively.
The aspirant alleged that there was no presence of officiating member in ward 15, despite a huge turn-out of party members, adding that number of party members were disenfranchised, adding that despite lapses recorded sponsored officiating officers still went ahead to announced fictitious figures as the outcome of the ratification
‘‘At the end of the day, the party members that were used as officiating officials went ahead to display a cooked and fictitious figures as the outcome of the ratification. Ratification can’t produce electoral result or where do they find the figures that is being brandished? A big disgrace to our party.”
Ademolake, however implored the party leaders to quickly do the needful and re-address the anomalies to avoid the unexpected., emphasizing that All Progressives Congress (APC) should be seen as a responsible political party