Former Kogi State Deputy Governor , Yomi Awoniyi, and prominent People’s Democratic Party stakeholders have threatened to cause serious crisis and disrupt today’s PDP governorship primary if the original delegates list was distorted and doctored to favour a certain aspirant.
Addressing a press conference late last night, Awoniyi who is a governorship aspirant flanked by other aspirant Rotimi Boluwafemi and PDP executives in the seven local government areas of Kogi west threatened to ensure that the opposition party in the state ‘ is dead and buried’ if the manipulative delegates list was not jettisoned for the ‘ authentic list’
According to them, the authentic delegate list that emanated from Senator Abdul Ningi delegates election of 29th March and the ratification of April 8th which was approved by INEC must be used for the governorship primary and any attempt to subvert this will be met with serious force that may generate to serious crisis.
In the doctored list, Awoniyi alleged that over 183 foreign names were imported into the original list while some local government like Yagba West delegates list was completely changed and names of prominent party members removed from other local governments and substituted by people who are not even PDP members.
Awoniyi stressed that it was disappointing that when this anomaly was observed, they quickly petitioned the national working committee of the party and all necessary party organs but instead of addressing the issue nothing was done.
He said the press conference was to draw the attention of the world to this abnormality, adding that it was trite to say that where the party set up guidelines for a process and same was not well adhered to, it is not reasonable for the same party to import strange names into the delegate list.
The Frontline aspirant said PDP was a party bound by laws and as a bonafide member of the party in the last 25 years, any attempt to make nonsense of the party’s primary would not be acceptable.
Also contributing, another aspirant, BoluFemi Rotimi stressed unequivocally that the approved list must be used, adding that failure to do so would lead total cancelation of the election and serious crisis if due process was not followed.
Likewise, Hon Tajudeen Yusuf said the doctored list was meant to accommodate people who are not even members of the party in a bid to impose an aspirant on the party.
Tajudeen said if his name as a three term member of the National Assembly could be removed from the delegates’ list and only returned after serious petition, then it means the hopeof other non prominent delegates whose names were removed may have been dashed
While saying they were sure the opposition party would win the Nov 11 governorship election if the right thing was done and a level playing ground given to all aspirants without fear or favour, they however urged the Markatfi Election committee to be upright and just to everyone. The Sun
