The Chairman of the Ekiti State Governorship Primary Election Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abubakar Badaru has dismissed media report that seven governorship aspirants in the just concluded primary election in the state boycotted the exercise.
Badaru insisted that media reports alleging that the exercise was boycotted were untrue.
There had been reports that seven aspirants expected to participate in Thursday’s governorship primary election of the party, boycotted the race over allegations of fraud and manipulation of the process in favour of the immediate past Secretary to the State Government, Biodun Oyebanji.
Oyebanji who won the primary election is fingered’ in many quarters to be the anointed candidate of Governor Kayode Fayemi.
Addressing newsmen after submitting the results of the primary election at the national secretariat of the party on Friday in Abuja, Badaru said out of the 166 wards where elections were held, the exercise was disrupted in only 11 wards.
He said, ”we have submitted the result sheets and reports where they were conducted, 166 wards. 11 wards were disrupted and we cancelled those areas but in 166, people actively participated. And I think you all have the videos of what transpired in all the 166 wards except the 11. Even the 11 that had crisis, I am sure you have seen the videos.
Badaru added: “We landed on the 26th. I had meetings with all the aspirants and seven attended out of eight. And we discussed the guidelines and we agreed on all the terms.
“What they were alleging probably, party members loyal to the governor were chosen to serve as returning officers in various wards and local governments. And they raised that at the meeting. And I asked them, the guidelines is to use the party people to do the job.
“We cannot hire or take people that are not from the party. But they can also give us 20 each from the party people that they believed will do justice to them. And they provided that 20 lists which we incorporated into returning officers. And this was communicated in the early morning to them because they sent their own list very late and that was what even delayed us that night.”
“But we managed to incorporate all the 20 people each they sent to us to participate also in the exercise. But you can see from what happened that they are supposed to have agents in all the 177 wards. And these 11 wards that the primaries were disrupted were wards that had a relationship with most of the aspirants. So, you can see if they have that power, to stop the congress, they could have done it also in the 166 wards.”