POLITICS

PDP primaries: One shot dead in Bayelsa, Lagos chapter cries foul

By Fola Ademosu

One person was shot dead during the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party in Bayelsa state, while displeased party members in Lagos are calling for the cancellation of the exercise in the state.

In the Bayelsa incident, a PDP member, Michael Isaiah, alias Tompolo, was shot dead during the house of assembly primaries held in constituency 1 of Ogbia Local Government.

An argument between the supporters of two aspirants, namely Hon Richard Ibegu and Jonathan Azibalamawal, led to the deadly fracas. Due to the incident, a new primary election has been scheduled for Monday.

On the contrary, the primary elections held in other constituencies went peacefully.

In the PDP Lagos chapter, governorship aspirants and members of the state organ of the party alleged the delegates list used for the primaries has been doctored.

The state party chairman, Philips Aivoji and four governorship aspirants,namely Dr Ade Dosunmu, Olanrewaju Jim-Kamal, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and Adedeji Doherty made the demand at a press briefing.

Aivoji said: “The entire executive committee of Lagos State PDP and five of the six gubernatorial aspirants reject in its entirety, the ad-hoc delegates’ list brought by the electoral committee to Lagos State for the purpose of conducting the primaries.

“We are all shocked to see that the list does not reflect the authentic elected ad-hoc delegates as conducted by organs of the party at ward level and supervised by the Department of State Service (DSS) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“It is imperative to state that copies of the ad-hoc list that emanated from the state and submitted to INEC are completely different from the one brought by the committee for the purpose of the exercise.

“We realised that contrary to the provision of our great party and the electoral guidelines of the party, the election committee came to the state with list of venues and already chosen electoral officers.”

The aggrieved party leaders said only a cancellation of the exercise would assuage them.

 

 

 

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button