Oyo South senatorial primaries abandoned due to irregularities

The Oyo South senatorial primary scheduled to hold at the Le Chateau Hall, Bodija in Ibadan on Saturday May 28, 2022 has been aborted due to acts of irregularity which members of the party have kicked against.

Party members had been gathered for the historic event alongside some of the aspirants as well as officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as stipulated by the electoral law expecting the commencement of the process.

However, the expected list of delegates was nowhere to be found and questions regarding its availability were not forthcoming. This led to the aspirants and their thousands of supporters insisting on following the recommendations of the law.

One of the leading candidates for the seat and 8th Assembly Senator, Rilwan Adesoji Akanbi, spoke to NTN at the venue of the election after hours of waiting for the election process to begin.

“There is a guideline under the law, even for general elections INEC would always publish the list of the voters and paste on the wall, but up till now we don’t have the list of the delegates and they want us to walk into an election blindly or blindfolded without knowing the delegates.

“That is why my lawyer came in today to drop this letter for the committee from Abuja to educate them on the importance of the aspirants having the list of the delegates. Denying us the access to knowing the delegates is (also) morally wrong not just about the law (alone),” he said.

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The APC primaries in other parts of the state have been marred by similar controversies owing to allegations that the lists of delegates have been doctored by certain members of the party who are bent on hijacking the process for selfish reasons and the Oyo South aspirants have now insisted that there shall be no election except an approved list of delegates is made public.

Another aspirant for the Oyo South Senatorial District ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Olusola Ayandele, had earlier withdrawn his participation in the party primary citing a lack of transparency and decency in the whole process.

There has been no official comment from the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo state regarding the incident.

This is a developing story.