The disrupted governorship primary election of the All Progressievs Congres (APC) in Ekiti State has been rescheduled for Friday, the party said yesterday.
After a review of the report of the Tanko Al-Makura panel that conducted the disputed election on Saturday, the National Working Committee (NWC) said the panel’s secretary, Magaji Aliyu, would be replaced because of the complaint that he was close to one of the aspirants.
Those linked with the disruption of Saturday’s exercise have been barred from playig any role on Friday.
The decision to conduct a new election instead of continuing from where the process was truncated, is in line with the demand of majority of the aspirants.
National Publicity Secretary Bolaji Abdullahi told reporters yesterday in Abuja: ”Perhaps, more importantly is that the exercise of Saturday is cancelled and would now be conducted this Friday, 11th May, 2018.”
On dropping the panel’s secretary, Abdulahi said: ”We don’t have any evidence that he has compromised in any way. But what we found is that almost all the aspirants complained that he has close relationship with one of the aspirants in a way that could compromise his ability to be objective and fair to all concerned.
“It is to that extent that we believe that to be on the safer side and to protect the integrity of the process, we should probably excuse him and bring in someone else. But there is no allegation that he has compromised in anyway.”
According to him, the party had decided that “all Identified unruly agents that participated in the suspended primary election of 5th May 2018 are disqualified from participating in the rescheduled primary as agents. Accordingly, the following individuals are hereby disqualified from participating as agents or partaking in the rescheduled primary in whatever capacity; Ayodeji Omowaye, Rotimi Faleye, Kayode Afolabi, Oladele Ademola Samuel, Oyetunde Ojo, Akintade Olayisade and Temitope Adewumi.
“All agent tags must bear the name of aspirants they represent. All agents in the rescheduled primary election are hereby barred from coming to the voting arena with their mobile phones.
“Security agents from other states will be mobilised to secure the venue and officials in the rescheduled election. One person would be appointed subject to the consensus of all aspirants to assist persons with disability and illiterate voters. All aspirants must not leave their sitting position unless with the approval of the primary committee.
“The NWC condemns the disruption of the primary of 5th May and resolved that all found culpable, directly or indirectly, will be punished in accordance with the relevant provisions of the party constitution.”
On allegations of an aspirant bribing delegates and why no aspirant was sanctioned, Abdullahi said: “We can only act based on what the committee is able to report to us. When we received the report and sat down to deliberate on it, I can reliably inform you that there was no such allegation contained in the report. Anything they did not include in the report as people entrusted with the assignment, we cannot discuss it. As far as we are concerned, we will treat it as rumour.”
On the culpability of the aspirants, he said even though there were aspirants linked to the individual agents that disrupted the process, “the principle of fair hearing requires that you are able to make these allegations formally to these individuals and give them the opportunity to defend themselves or explain as the case may be before you take whatever action against them.
“If we proceed this time to handing any summary discipline on them without giving them the opportunity to explain, that will not be justice and they will have the right to appeal such decisions.”
Mallam Abdullahi said the committee secretary was never indicted for compromising the process but that “ virtually all aspirants complained that the secretary has a close relationship with one of their colleagues and so we decided to drop him in order to guard the integrity of the process and not because he was found to have compromised”.