The peaceful atmosphere of the Osun State Government House, Osogbo was on Tuesday threatened as some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) protested an alleged manipulation of primary elections results in favour of some aspirants by the leadership of the party in the state.
The members of the party who were party delegates from the 31 local government areas of the state, were summoned into the Government House as early as 8.00 a.m of the day in anticipation that the outcome of the election results would be announced.
However, their expectations were dashed as they alleged that they were asked to sign blank results sheets.
This development infuriated about 500 delegates who were in attendance at the meeting and they threw decorum into the wind to register their grievances about the move they described as undemocratic.
One of them who spoke to our reporter on anonymity, said: “they were shocked when they were ordered to sign documents, which they supposedly told them to be the results sheets, but no names were on it.”
When asked if had an idea of the meeting before attending, they stated that “the purpose of the meeting was not stated in the messages sent to them by the party hierarchy. We were only asked to show up at the Government House”.
The meeting had the presence of the State party Chairman, Prince Gboyega Famodun, the Senate spokesperson and Director-General of Oyetola campaign council, Dr Ajibola Basiru, Former Rep member, Ajibola Famurewa and special adviser to Governor Oyetola on political affairs, Sunday Akere; among others, saw the party members frowning at the development.
The delegates who refused to sign the documents until they know the names of the winner to sign, said they suspected foul play and maintained that they cannot sign a blank document as they perceived the leadership of the party wanted to manipulate the outcome of the exercise by replacing winners of the election for losers.
They, however, charged them to announce the authentic results of the elections as the exercise was fairly and freely conducted.
According to them, “the delegates did not vote. It was the direct primaries. Why ask us to sign results sheets? They are thieves. They want to manipulate the results and we will continue to resist that. The choice of the people should be announced. We can’t sign blank results”, one of the delegates from Ila local government said.
The protesters thereafter called on the national leadership of the party to prevail on the party leaders in the state to disregard manipulating and forging results they might have presented to them for ratification.
It will be recalled that some protesters had last week stormed the state government house and the abode of the state party chairman to register their grievances on the non-release of the party election results since about six days ago.
However, a special adviser to Governor Gboyega Oyetola, Hon. Sunday Akere in an interview stated that nobody presented them with blanket documents to sign, saying, “they were only invited to come and ratify the results which some of them are ready to do but were disturbed to do so by those who perceived their chances were not auspicious in the exercise.”
According to him, “We thought we should do it at the Government House to make it easier and faster but, when we saw the development, we referred to their various constituencies for the ratifications.
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Members protest at Goverment House… Members protest at Goverment House… Members protest at Goverment House…
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