The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Ondo State chapter, on Sunday described the governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ondo State as a charade.
According to the opposition party, the inability of the ruling party to properly conduct a hitch-free primary among the 16 aspirants in the state is a sign that the APC is not capable of ruling the country.
In a statement by its publicity secretary in the state, Kennedy Peretei, the PDP emphasised that the primaries were a mockery of democracy.
“The signs that all would not be well emerged 48 hours before the primary, when five of the aspirants petitioned the APC National Headquarters about irregularities among the accredited members for the primary.
“Four years ago, former Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello, who has been declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for N85 billion fraud, presided over a similar event in Akure, where none of the aspirants sighted the delegate list before the primary.
“As of the morning of the election, it was not clear whether it was going to be a direct or indirect primary.
“That was the exercise that produced former Governor Rotimi Akeredolu as a candidate of the APC for the 2020 governorship election.
“This time, Gov. Ahmed Usman Ododo, Bello’s successor in office, has wreaked more havoc than his boss. Journalists who tried to monitor the primary were shocked that in almost all the centres where elections were supposed to be held, there were no election materials, nor were there officials to conduct the exercise.”