ONDO APC PRIMARY: ABRAHAM URGES NWC TO DECLARE HIM WINNER

THE post-primary crisis in the Ondo State All progressives Congress (APC) deepened yesterday as a governorship aspirant, Dr. Olusegun Abraham, urged the National Working Committee (NWC) to declare him winner of the shadow poll.

The Ikare-Akoko-born industrialist-turned politician said if the votes were recounted after voiding the ineligible votes, he would have scored the highest number of votes.
Abraham came second in the disputed primary, scoring 535 votes. The winner of the controversial primary, Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), scored 569.

Abraham and two other aspirants, Prof. Ajayi Boroffice and Chief Olusola Oke, rejected the results, citing irregularities and distortion of the delegates' list.
In their petitions to the Primary Appeal Committee, they called for nullification of the results and a fresh exercise.

But Abraham reviewed his position on the primary, saying he won the shadow poll.

He said in a statement in Lagos that if the exercise was not marred by malpractices, he would have defeated other contestants with a wide margin.

The aspirant said: "I am making a new appeal to declare me the winner of the September 3 primary. This should be the position, following a conscientious recalculation and recounting of the votes after voiding the ineligible votes. The NWC should consider this option at the expense of a fresh primary."
Abraham maintained that 157 fake delegates were injected into the delegates' list in 12 of the 18 local governments.

He said if the votes of 54 delegates loyal to him in the three local government of Akoko North West (13), Akoko North East (26) and Idanre (15), who were disenfranchised and substituted with fake delegates, were added to his score (635), after the fake and substituted ones have been removed from Akeredolu's votes, he will emerge with the highest votes.
According to the analysis, Abraham will end up having 689 votes (635 + 54) against Akeredolu's 589 votes (669 – 26 – 54).

If the 157 fake votes were removed from Akeredolu's votes and the 131 rightful votes re-alloted to Abraham, (with the exclusion of Owo's 26), Akeredolu will end up with 512 votes (669 – 157) while Abraham will poll 766 votes (635 + 131).

A party source said: "Since it has been established by the Electoral Appeal Committee that fake delegates were truly injected into the list at the expense of real and eligible delegates, who couldn't vote on the day, I actually don't see any reason why the NWC cannot truly consider removing the votes cast by fake delegates."

Source: Faitholaniran's blog