Kwara APC primaries: Anxiety as members halt result announcement

ANXIETY has trailed outcome of the primary election of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Kwara state as party members await the official announcement of results of its state House of Assembly, National Assembly and governorship primaries.

It was gathered that some members of the opposition party in Kwara state are presently aggrieved over the conduct of the direct primaries held on Saturday, October 5 and Sunday, October 6, 2018.

Members of the party were accusing the Chief Iyiola Oladokun-led eight-man electoral panel of keeping them in the dark regarding the outcome of the primaries, saying that results were neither officially collated nor released, hours after it was held.

However, unconfirmed reports had it that announcement of the result had been made at a discreet location in the state capital late Sunday night.

The Minister for Information and Culture and APC leader in the state, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, was around to coordinate the exercise until 12 pm on Sunday when he reportedly returned to Abuja.

At about 10.pm on Sunday, the Chairman of the Committee, Chief Iyiola Oladokun, with other members, planned to commence announcement of election results at the Savannah Hotel, Ilorin when an agent to one of the governorship aspirants interjected him seeking to know if he actually meant collation of results or announcement.

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The agent, who was armed with the party’s constitution, insisted that the collation must be done before the announcement, while agents of other aspirants chorused that due process must be followed.

However, while appealing to the agents, Oladokun lamented that the committee members had operated under a very tight schedule conducting two important primaries in just two days, noting that if the required procedures and the process was to be followed strictly, the party would not be able to meet up with the INEC deadline for the submission of the names of candidates.

He also said that though there were reports of minor skirmishes during the primaries, adding that no life was lost.

Oladokun, who asked for the cooperation of all to achieve success at the poll, however, failed to pacify the aggrieved agents of the aspirants, while the programme ended abruptly.

The committee members calmly returned to their rooms while the agents put calls through to the supporters who surfaced at the gate within minutes and began to chorus ‘Sai Talban’ interspersed with ‘Lailaha Ila lah’.

Having envisaged possible threat to their lives, it was suggested that the committee members should be relocated to another hotel.

The Committee members were consequently ‘detained’ in the hotel as the supporters kept vigil and refused to allow movement in and out of the premises.

Succour came the way of the committee members when the Commissioner of Police, Bolaji Fafowora, arrived the hotel at about 2.20 am and asked the party excos, committee members and the supporters of the aspirants to move to his office for a peace meeting, which reportedly lasted till about 5:00 am on Monday.

However, it was gathered on Monday morning that the committee members and agents left police headquarters at about 5:00 am, while a source said that they had all been asked to go to Abuja where the results are expected to be announced.