The Rasaq Salinsile-led faction of the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has rejected the result of the party’s gubernatorial primary election held on Saturday, February 19, 2022, describing it as one fraught with fraud and manipulations.
This is as the faction at a stakeholders meeting held on Monday in Osogbo also noted that the exercise was as charade, ruse and sham.
A statement made available by Abiodun Agboola, the faction’s Publicity Secretary, the factional Chairman, maintained that there were many anomalies which had been planned ahead before the exercise.
Salinsile, who lamented that the party’s aspirant, Moshood Adeoti was not allowed to have access to the membership register, added that this denied him the knowledge of knowing how many members the party had at the time of the primary election.
According to him, “We put on record the fact that many people were disenfranchised, as APC members who trooped to the election centres with their membership slips, could not find their names on the register.
“Contrary to the guidelines, accreditation did not take place in many election centres while result sheets were unavailable.”
Salinsile, who alleged that appointees of the Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola were the appointed electoral officers and supervisors of the exercise, disclosed that this enabled over voting in some areas while the much talked about presence of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was non-existent.
He explained that party members who did not belong to the IleriOluwa group of the state governor were chased away from the polling centres by thugs hired by government agents.
The APC faction which has the strong support of Rauf Aregbesola, the Minister of Interior, also revealed that prior to Saturday’s primary election, they had asked Oyetola to resign his membership of the National Caretaker and Extraordinary National Planning Committee as it ran contrary to morality and the law.
They also accused the governor of using the position to manipulate many things in the run up to the primary election.
“That position was used by Governor Oyetola to get so many things manipulated in the process leading to conduct of the primary, including the furtive change of date of the exercise.
“We are, therefore, convinced that justice has not been served and therefore rejects the result and will be approaching the Appeal Committee to be set up by the National Secretariat,” it concluded.
