Saturday 28th May 2022 was a reckoning day in Iseyin local government area of Oyo State as masses aborted planned secret voting by a serving Senator representing Oyo North Senatorial District.
According to the information gathered, the primaries of the All Progressives Congress for Oyo North Senatorial District was scheduled to hold at the Iseyin District Grammar School, Iseyin but was secretly shifted to a personal residence of former Iseyin Local Government Chairman, Engr. Bolade with just one aspirant, Senator Fatai Buhari, out of five contestants in attendance.
Also in attendance at the secret voting venue was former Oyo State Commissioner for Works and Transport, Alhaji Wasiu Dauda Azuzu.
Speaking with journalists at the Iseyin District Grammar School (IDGS), other four aspirants, Honourable Shina Peller, Honourable Saheed Alaran, Chief Ogunbode and Mrs. Adeola Adeboyin condemned the illegal act, describing it as a joke taken too far.
A serving House of Representatives member, Honourable Shina Peller representing Iseyin/Iwajowa/Kajola/Itesiwaju Federal Constituency decried the latest development where a serving Senator would engage in such a shameful act.
He said “Iseyin District Grammar School is the venue that we all agreed for the primary election for APC House of Representatives and Senate.
“All the delegates are here with their cards since 10 am and all the aspirants for House of Representatives and Senate are all here except a serving Senator but to our surprise, we were briefed that there is another cangaroo primaries going on in one hotel along Oyo-Iseyin road and we moved to the venue and its unfortunate that we met them there with some unaccredited delegates as well as fake ballot papers, and accreditation tags that have no passports.
This is absolutely wrong.
“We are supposed to follow the guidelines of our party, there should be a respect for our party and our people. This is totally unaccepted, we don’t have trust in the whole process again. What we need now is a direct primaries, our people have been here since Thursday for the state House of Assembly primaries, they were also here yesterday, Friday for House of Representatives primaries, they waited till 11pm before they were chased away from this premises.
“This morning, we have been here for Senatorial primaries and uptill now, after 3:00pm we have not seen any officials of our party saddled with the responsibility,” he disclosed.
Also, in their own separate contributions, the Senatorial aspirants present at the venue, Honourable Saheed Alaran, Honourable Adebola Adeboyin and Honourable Shola Ogunbode said they are not satisfied with the current situation of things here in our district.
They appealed to the leadership of the party for quick intervention over the matter.
As at the time of filing this report, all the House of Representatives members for Iseyin, Itesiwaju, Kajola and Iwajowa and Oyo North Senatorial District accredited delegates with their original slips, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials were on ground.
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