Ekiti APC primary was preconceived to favour an anointed candidate —Adeyeye

A former Minister of Works and senator, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, was one of the seven governorship aspirants who rejected the process of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary last Thursday, which produced Biodun Oyebanji, as candidate. He tells ‘YOMI AYELESO in this interview his grievances with the shadow poll and the way forward for the party ahead of the June 18 election.   

Seven of you aspirants last Thursday protested and called for the cancellation of the APC governorship primary. What are the fundamental flaws you observed in the whole process? 

The entire process, from the beginning to the end, was pre-conceived to achieve a clandestine objective of foisting a candidate on us. For example, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) started their own process two months before the APC. After the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC ) released the timetable and guidelines for the Ekiti election, the PDP immediately swung into action and gave the notice for sale of forms and other things clearly stated. But, it took the APC two months to respond because they wanted to delay the entire process such that we will not be able properly scrutinise the entire process, raise objections where necessary and give advice also where appropriate. We collected forms.

They did not say the last day for obtaining the form; they only saidwhen to return the forms which was very close to the day of the election. They did not let us know who was coming to conduct the election, until maybe 48 hours to the election. Initially, it came out in the social media like arumour; nobody was sure because there was no press statement or briefing by officials of the party. We only saw it in the social media until the team arrives Ekiti on the eve of the primary. If we had known the committee members, I personally would have objected to the inclusion and nomination of the JigawaState governor, Abubakar Badaru. He is the best friend of Governor Fayemi, one of the cabals running the affairs of our party.

The Jigawa governor is one of the acolytes and trusted allies of Governor Fayemi and among the cabals. I would have objected to his nomination as chairman of the committee but because it was obvious he was coming to Ekiti to a do hatchet job, the same with other committee members. When they got to the state, they addressed us in a stakeholders’ meeting.

He did not even wait for everybody to arrive; he started the meeting and he was rushing the all whole process. When I got there, I observed that they had already picked the people that would serve as returning officers; three each in all the 177 wards and also selected that of the local government areas.

So, I asked from the chairman that from which pool did he draw the names and he said he got them from the local chapter of the party; that is laughable. I said they are supporters and promoters of one of the aspirants (Biodun Oyebanji). The executives of the party in the state were handpicked and imposed on the people.

There was no congress anywhere; they just wrote names under the table and all of them have been directed and commanded to support the Fayemi’s anointed aspirant. I said that will not happen and he tactically agreed that we (aspirants) to nominate 20 names each; that will be 140 names from seven of us, out of 531 that will be used for the election. How fair is that arrangement? We submitted the names and our people went for the purported training but the original list of 531 names, who were promoters of Oyebanji was not changed at all.

They left our people stranded. In the presence of these people, election materials, including result sheets were given to the loyalists and acolytes of one of the aspirants on the eve of the elections; they did not participate in the process and all the people you saw on the day of the primary were all brought from the campaign team of Oyebanji and we have pictorial and video evidence of where they were involved in his campaign and that the same people serving as returning officers, how could that election be fair? They already filled the scores previous night and whatever you saw them doing on the day of the election were mere demonstration.

They gave the so-called winner 101,703 scores; that is more than half the number of votes Fayemi scored in 2018, when we did everything to put him there. Are you saying more than half of the people that voted for Fayemi were APC members?  We all know that we (politicians) in the state are not up to 10 percent of the voters. That tells you they have already written the figures.

What efforts did you make to bring to the attention of the committee chairman?

We complained to the chairman that this is not fair and he said we should come for a meeting in the morning of election around 9am at the party secretariat. As we were moving to the party secretariat for the meeting, I saw a text message on my phone from the secretary of the committee(Victor Olambitan)saying that the chairman (Governor Badaru) is not willing to see us because he has seen in the social media that we were already complaining about the process. Can you imagine how arrogant that is!  So, we are not supposed to express our views, when we see obvious injustice, fraud and rigging? That was how we (aspirants) met at the party secretariat purposely for a meeting but when we did not meet the chairman, we decided to address the press.

But the Jigawa State governor declared that the election was free, fair and transparent that he was not aware of your protests before he went ahead to announce Oyebanji as the winner. What is your immediate reaction to it?

It is not a surprise to me that he announced the so-called winner. Let me say that for you to know that they came for a purpose, they brought soldiers and a huge number of police officers so that people won’t be able to demonstrate. You can see how absurd the situation is and Governor Badaru said he went around and observed peace.  Was he expecting us to kill ourselves?  He said Ekiti are known to react to issues violently. We are not bandits; he brought army to Ekiti for an ordinary primary. I have not seen that before now. The whole place was militarised and it was preconceived.

What is the way forward now that a candidate has emerged for the party and your advice to the leadership of the APC ahead of the June 18 poll?

I am weighing the options before me; that is what I can say for now. I won’t say more than that for now. But I will advise the party to acknowledge they have perpetrated a fraud in Ekiti; that people are angry and they should come back here , either they do it again or find a way to resolve the matter in such a way that justice will be served to all. However, if they think they will be sticking to what they have done, good luck to them.