Women and youth members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State on Monday staged a peaceful protest in Akure over the alleged alteration of the party’s Senate and House of Representatives primary election results, demanding the release of what they described as the authentic candidates’ list.
The protesters marched through major roads in the state capital, causing traffic gridlock as they called on the APC National Secretariat to publish the original results of the direct primary election.
They carried placards bearing inscriptions such as “Ondo State Is on Fire,” “Ondo State Says No to Abuja Result,” “No to Corner-Corner Appeal,” “Ondo State Women Stand with Governor Aiyedatiwa,” “We No Go Gree,” “Let Our Votes Count,” “APC National, We No Go Gree,” among others.
Addressing journalists during the protest, the APC Women Leader in Ondo State, Princess Oluwayemisi Iji-Ayeola, alleged that the results of the primary election conducted across the state’s 18 local government areas had been withheld for almost a month before names of persons who did not participate in the exercise emerged on a list circulated by the party.
According to Iji-Ayeola, the direct primary election was free and credible, producing candidates accepted by party members, adding that the delayed release of the results and the emergence of what she described as a different list had created discontent among party faithful.
She said party leaders in the state had made several representations to the APC National Secretariat over the matter, maintaining that the authentic results from the ward, local government and state levels were available. She urged the national leadership to discard the disputed list and release what she described as the genuine results.
She said “What we are saying now is that the Federal Government should please help us get the National Secretariat to release our genuine results. We have our own results from the ward level to the local government and the state, and they are in our archive.
”The ones they are doctoring should be discarded, and they should bring out the original results. We want our own candidates to emerge, not candidates we do not know.”
The APC women leader warned that members would continue to press for justice if their demands were not met, insisting that the mandate given by party members during the primary election must be respected.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Seun Osamaye, said the protest was organised to reject what the women described as a fake list that did not reflect the votes cast during the primary election across the state’s 203 wards.
