100 Ondo aggrieved aspirants drag APC, Oshiomole to court

FOLLOWING the outcome of the primary elections of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State, about 100 aspirants of the party, on Monday, dragged the APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomole and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to court over the outcome of the party’s primaries in the State.

In the suit filed by the aspirants who were led by the former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mr Kenneth Olawale, said there was no primary election in the State through which the candidates of the party should have emerged for the 2019 general election.

Speaking through their counsel, Mr Wale Omotoso, the aspirants prayed the court to declare the process through which the National and state Assembly candidates emerged as void, saying there was no primary election in the State.

They noted that the party in the State has violated the 2010 Electoral Act and the constitution of the country by presenting candidates for the forthcoming election without the conduct of party primaries which is one of the prerequisites for the emergence of candidates.

The aggrieved aspirants also included in the suit instituted against the party and Oshiomole, the National Legal Adviser, Mr Babatunde Ogala, the state Chairman of the party in Ondo State, Mr Ade Adetimehin and INEC.

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The aggrieved aspirants prayed for a “declaration that the subversion of the Electoral Guidelines of the APC as stipulated in its constitution by the party machinery in Ondo State in respect of the House of Representatives and House of Representatives primaries purportedly conducted on the 5th of October, 2018 in their failure to give the claimants opportunity of being voted for by the members of the party as enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended is illegal, invalid, unconstitutional, null and void.

“A declaration that the hand picking of preferred candidates without conducting any primary election in any of the ward and constituency in Ondo State with no presence of any officials of INEC and members of the National Electoral Committee of the party amounting to pre-arranged choice of candidates is illegal, contrary to the Electoral guideline of the APC party and the express provisions of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended in 2015.

“A declaration that the harassment, molestation and intimidation of the claimants in their various leading to their being forcibly chased sway and embarrassed from all venues designed for the purpose of the primary elections with machetes and Dane guns by the hired thugs and hoodlums of the preferred candidates thereby ensuring that no primary election was held, amount to gross flagrant breach of Electoral guideline of the APC party and the express provisions of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended in 2015.”

They also described the attempt by the Electoral Committee to send names of the party’s candidates to INEC to amount to a breach of the constitution and the Electoral Act, asking the court to void the act of hand picking of preferred candidates without due process of the law.

However, the Presiding Judge, Justice F A Olubanjo ordered that all the defendants must be served while hearing of the case was fixed to November 12, 2018.