Breaking:PDP Guber Primaries: Awoniyi, Rotimi, others threatens Showdown over doctored list.
Treasure Julius
Ahead of tomorrow’s PDP governorship primaries, Two aspirants, Architect Yomi Awoniyi, Bolufemi Rotimi , Party Executives and stakeholders from Kogi west PDP have threaten to boycot Sunday Governorship election over alleged falsification of ad-hoc delegates lists.
In a world press conference held on Saturday in Lokoja, Arch. Yomi Awoniyi, a former Deputy Governor,and contender in Sunday primary election of PDP alleged that the official lists from the March 29, 2023 delegates Congress as certified by INEC was erroneously manipulated by certain group of persons to favour a particular aspirant.
He said , one hundred and fifty Eight delegate names were replaced by those who are neither members of the party nor those who did not participate in the Congress.
He added that he and his co aspirant, Bolufemi Rotimi, ,stakeholders from western zone and aspirants from the Eastern District of the state had complained of the mysterious tinkering from the original list as declared by Abdul Ningi led delegates election panel.
He said , the aspirants did pointed out to the panel over duplicate copy of result sheet being used for the Congress, although it was duely signed by the party, he however promised to transfer the final result into the original sheet.
He noted that when the final list was released ,158 delegates from the seven local Governments Areas that make up the zone were replaced with some names only known to those who want to favour a particular aspirant.
According to him, the balkanisation and murdering of original lists cut across all the 21 LGA , with the central district having the least alteration.
He added that nine aspirants took their grievances to the appeal panel for redress to no avail.
He lamentated that some aspirants’ and National delegates names were allegedly omitted from the final list as submitted by the Ningi panel, stressing that it took the efforts of the aspirants to compel the Headquarters to correct the anomalies.
According to him , he has spent 29 years in PDP without defection, so also his co- aspirant, Bolufemi Rotimi and many officials of the PDP from the Zone. All what we are warning is for the party to come up tomorrow with the original list which is in their domain. Anything short of this, the party would be consumed by the crisis that will erupt .
” We paid our intent forms and nomination forms and other sundry levies. The only option for the party is to used the original copy from the delegates Congress , endorsed by Security Agencies and the INEC to prevent total collapse of the party.” He warned.
In their separate contributions, Dr. Bolufemi Rotimi an aspirant and Hon.Tajudeen Yusuf, member House of Representatives, from Kabba / Ijumu Federal Constituency said they are keen adherent to law and due process, warning that if the PDP fails to do the needful, they will use the same law to pull down the party.” They assured.
Those in attendance of the press conference include ,some party chairmen from the zone, state Deputy Chairman, and some critical stakeholders.