‘APC will not stop at anything to reconcile with aggrieved aspirants’

Karounwi Oladapo, is former Deputy Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly. He is the South West Zonal Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with AYODELE AFOLABI in Ado Ekiti, he spoke on the recently-concluded primary election of his party.

Oladapo

What is your assessment of the primary election?
The primary election was very credible, free, fair and transparent. The primary was devoid of violence. I can speak on the election because I am from Ekiti and also a major stakeholder in the politics of the state. I came from Efon Alaaye where I also participated in the election on the said day of 27, January 2022. I was part of it and what I said was not a reported speech.

Again, my authority rested on the fact that I have been contesting elections on the platforms of progressive parties. I have the opportunity of contesting three direct primaries in my political journey. So, I know what direct primary is until this reformed direct primary which APC experimented in Ekiti that threw up Oyebanji as governorship candidate.

What do I mean? The direct primary we were used to was the one whereby people queued behind the poster of an aspirant but there were no ways of identifying them as genuine party members. What usually happened was that people were exported from places outside where the election is taking place and in most cases, they are students of tertiary institutions. You bring them in to gain an advantage.

In most cases where the election is not going your way, you cause violence so that people may not queue to vote and in doing so, you give the electoral official opportunity to write bogus figures. The proponent of direct primary knows that it would be easier to rig than delegate election. But for the first time in this country, the APC has helped to introduce reform direct primary which they experimented in Ekiti. Ekiti election is now a benchmark and a model for other primary elections in the country. Do you know that in the case of Ekiti, some novel ideas and guidelines were introduced. Part of it was that the election would not be conducted without accreditation to ascertain that those voting are genuine party members. The party made available the certified true copy of the membership register from the party national secretariat of APC and they were distributed accordingly through the electoral official to all the wards. Hitherto, political parties in this country hardly have a verifiable register. But because of the innovative efforts of the Mai’mala Buni led leadership of the party, made it possible. Members were asked to identify themselves through voters cards and APC membership cards. On the day of the primary, members met genuine membership register in their wards. I got to my ward 07 in Efon Alaaye and identified myself with my voter’s card and membership card.

The aggrieved aspirants now referred to as G7 raised some issues about the process leading to the primary election. For instance, they alleged that the returning officers were core loyalists of Oyebanji, who eventually emerged the APC candidate.

On the eve of the election, the stakeholders meeting was conveyed and I was there. Seven of the eight aspirants were there and each item in the guideline was read to them clause by clause. Issues were raised and this particular question you asked was raised. The electoral officer said that as it was traditional in our party and others, the elected officials have been nominated forwards and local government. They said that they didn’t have confidence in the party. The governor said can you bring 20 members of your camps so that we can accommodate them? They all clapped and they were happy. In fact, the training of the electoral officials was to follow the stakeholders meeting but because of the issue they raised, it has to be shifted a bit till 8:00 pm so as to accommodate the 20 names. If anyone is in doubt, they should check the names of Ijero local government.

The aggrieved aspirants also said that since no member of the party does not belong to a political camp, ad-hoc election officials ought to be brought from neighbouring states.

They should show us where that idea is in our party constitution or guidelines where it was written. If that was done, these same people would have challenged the process in court to discredit the exercise. Although they didn’t suggest the idea because they know that it has no place in the statute book and people would have shouted them down. Some of them are bad losers. When they lose, they will look for excuses to justify why they performed poorly. They should give us a precedent of where it has happened that the internal affairs of the party should be externalised. When has it become the practice where a student will be telling his lecturer the kind of question to ask him. Badaru went out of the guideline to ask them to nominate 20 people, though we had reservations we felt that if it would assuage their feeling so be it. Unfortunately, despite the privilege given to them, they still turned around to complain.

The aspirants also raised the issue of bogus figures earmarked for the winner against theirs, despite having contested elections where they had recorded high figures before.

People should not compare apple with orange. They should not take us for a fool. How will they be comparing a general election with an election conducted within the membership of a political party. It is a misnomer for them to compare the votes to get to either the Senate or House of Representatives. They should compare their votes with what they scored in their previous primaries which took them to where they were. When you say that all card-carrying members and we have 183,000 as registered members and 107,000 came for accreditation and they were counted before the voting and recorded in the result sheets. This was the case in every ward where elections took place. When voting was conducted, 104,000 voted and 3000 members who had earlier been accredited didn’t come to vote. Of the 104, 000, Biodun Oyebanji scored almost 102,000 to emerge winner and nothing is strange about it. For instance, some people who called themselves SWAGA suddenly returned to the party and voted for Oyebanji. The figure that these aspirants were laying claims to were won by their party, various party leaders canvassed for votes. However, this is not to say that the candidates themselves did not influence votes, but it is wrong for them to attribute all the votes for themselves.

Now that the candidate has emerged, will the party rebuff the aggrieved aspirants or negotiate with them as a way of reconciliation?
I don’t think that the party will call their bluff because they are leaders of our party. They are respectable and committed members of our party. But I don’t think that the party will negotiate with them. Why will the party negotiate? What happened that will make the party negotiate with them? Do you negotiate with what is not in the kitty? Look, let all of our work for the victory of the party. Don’t forget that the party does not belong to them. What is going to be the lots of others who thought are more qualified but didn’t contest? Let everyone rally around the candidate so that we can win. Reconciliation is a process and the party has kick-started it. Some of the leaders are already reaching out to them. Even though there was no basis for their grievances, Oyebanji has reached out to them. We will not stop at anything to reconcile with them.