The Senator representing the Ekiti South Senatorial Districts and governorship aspirant, Biodun Olujimi on Wednesday pulled out of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primary election in Ekiti State shortly after the exercise commenced.
Addressing journalists in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, Olujimi said that her decision to withdraw from the primary was informed by alleged irregularities during the accreditation of delegates.
The PDP chieftain said that she could not be part of a political process that had excluded party delegates who are mainly her supporters, adding that development runs against the tenets of participatory democracy.
Olujimi noted that the accreditation exercise was outrightly fraught with irregularities and sabotage with the list of delegates brought by Governor Udom Emmanuel-led electoral team allegedly doctored in favour of a particular aspirant and group.
She said other aspirants have the full complement of the delegates from their local government given to them by the party while she was given only 12 from her local government.
According to her, “Four had already been written for Fayose group out of the six councils in my district(Ekiti South). The party will do everything to ensure that because I am the sitting senator and I am the only one, they will give me my full compliments of delegates. All of a sudden, getting there(accreditation centre) this morning, I found out that only 12 people including myself can vote from my local government, they said because they had not conducted a congress, they were going to use only automatic delegates in my LGA and Gbonyin LG.
“Meaning, there would be 12 delegates to vote and 10 from Gbonyin LGA. At least 155 should vote there, but only 22 can vote. I thought it was very unfair, it was unjust, it was disenfranchising me because of my gender or because the party feels I have not done enough for it.
“Going forward from there would mean that I am condoning what is wrong and I am accepting two different scenarios in one congress which means full complements ward delegates plus statutory delegates and in my own automatic delegates own in the same election and I thought it is unfair, it is unethical, it is unjust, it does not speak to fairness and I feel it should not happen to anyone, it should not have happened to me being the only one that still flies the flag of the party in the state.
“So I thought my best was just to pull out and I pulled out. I did not step down. They can continue, I will also internalize the problem, there will be some introspection, then I will make a decision.”
Speaking on efforts to address the situation, “I had a lengthy discussion with Governor Udom Emmanuel and he too was not aware until he brought out the list of Ekiti East and saw undecided, yet to be decided etc on three sheets of paper with only 12 names that could vote on the top sheet. On the other one, he saw 10 names that could vote.”
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