Suspected Fake Delegates Arrested, As Peller, Others Kick Against Irregularities, Call For Direct Primary

Following irregularities at APC Primary in Iseyin, Hon. Shina Peller and other aspirants have called for direct primary.

Aspirants of All Progressive Party (APC) in Oyo North Senatorial District have all called for a direct primary as a way out of crises rocking the party on who will represent the interest of their people at the red chamber.

The aspirants speaking with journalists at the venue of the Primary, Iseyin District Grammar School (IDGS), Iseyin on Saturday condemned ways and manners some perceived bad elements of the party are handling the primaries.

The primaries of the party that was scheduled to hold at the Iseyin District Grammar School was shifted to an hotel within the senatorial district with just one aspirant out of five contestants, who is a current serving senator of the district.

The two delegates, (a middle aged man and a lady) that were arrested by security operatives were brought to Iseyin District Grammar School with ballot papers and other sensitive materials meant for the primary.

A serving House of Representatives member, Honourable Shina Peller representing Iseyin/Iwajowa/Kajola/Itesiwaju Federal Constituency decried the latest development where a serving Senator and some bad elements in the party were alleged to have organized a parallel primary in one popular hotel along Oyo town.

He said “Iseyin District Grammar School is the venue that we normally have our primary election.

“All the delegates are here with their cards since 10am while some have been here before that time, and all the aspirants both for House of Rep and Senator are all here except a serving Senator but to our surprise, we were briefed that there is another Kangaroo 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 has no passports sthis is absolutely wrong.

“We are supposed to follow the guidelines of our party, there should be respect for our party, the rule of law 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.”

“Our people say enough is enough, they don’t want this person to represent them at the red chamber, they are agitating for power to come to Oke Ogun come 2023.”

“This morning, we have been here for Senatorial primaries and up till now, this is some minutes after 3:00pm, we have not seen any officials of our party saddle with the responsibility of conducting free and fair primary for us,” 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 called for an open playing field for all aspirants.

They appealed to the leadership of the party for quick intervention over the matter at hand.

As at the time of filing this report, all the House of Representatives members for Iseyin, Iwajowa, Kajola and Itesiwaju, accredited delegates with their original slips, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials were on ground.