The National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Dayo Adeyeye, has accused Governor Ayodele Fayose of attempting to derail the electoral process by conducting the party’s local government election primaries at the Government House.
The party had also adopted Option A4 for selecting the candidates in the process which held on Wednesday in Ado-Ekiti.
The option involves voters lining behind their preferred candidates.
But the PDP in the state has responded to the accusation, saying that the venue of the primaries did not affect the credibility of the process, saying that instead it provided the needed ambience for a free and fair election.
Adeyeye who is also a governorship aspirant in Ekiti State, said on Wednesday that “Fayose and his agents” were trying to ruin the party and urged the national leadership under Ahmed Makarfi to intervene.
Adeyeye argued that primaries were supposed to hold in the respective wards and local governments instead of having the delegates travel from their localities to the Government House.
He said: “In the first instance, Governor Fayose created his own constitution by fixing the maximum age for chairmanship candidates at 50 years while maximum age for councillorship candidate at 30 years against the provisions of Nigerian Constitution.
“There is nowhere in the constitution that stipulates maximum age for any elective position.
“The primaries to elect the candidates for councillorship and chairmanship of various local governments commenced at the Government House instead of the various wards and local governments respectively.
“The Governor is the electoral officer for the exercise.
“Thousands of our party people were subjected to untold hardships by sleeping on grasses, inside buses and car and concrete platform. The Governor adopted Option A4 method that attracted a lot of people without any arrangement for accommodation of the delegates.
“Surprisingly, today, the party issued a statement that the governor had disqualified all chairmanship aspirants from Ado local government. Also, some LG chairmanship aspirants from Ido Osi, Moba and Ikole were included in the illegal disqualifications for unruly behaviours, thereby calling for fresh nomination before Friday for other interested aspirants.
“We believe that only a court of law can disqualify candidates for election not by executive fiat by the governor.”
