From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
Former Minister of Works and governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the January 27 primary election in Ekiti State, Senator Dayo Adeyeye, has faulted the process of the party’s primary that produced Biodun Oyebanji as the party’s flag bearer for the June 18 election in the state.
Adeyeye and six other aggrieved aspirants had withdrawn from the exercise and called for its cancellation alleging that the primary election committee was made up of loyalists of Dr Kayode Fayemi, the governor of the state. He spoke on various issues.
What is your overall assessment of the January 27 primary of your party in the state?
There was no January 27 primary of the APC in Ekiti State. There was no primary at all, what took place was a complete sham. It was a premeditated action by Governor Fayemi and supported by the party leadership in Abuja. He brought here to conduct the primary his best friend in the Governors’ Forum, Governor Mohammed Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa State, who has held the party hostage in the last two years. He brought him here as the chairman of the electoral committee, we thought it was a rumour, but they made sure they had made the announcement so late close to the primary so that nobody could protest, otherwise some of us would have protested against the composition of that panel particularly being the chairman of the panel.
He came here, we had a meeting on the eve of the primary and we saw that there was already a premeditated action to rig the primary in favour of Fayemi’s boy. The simple evidence was this, I asked this question, in our interaction with him, that from which pool did he draw the chairman and secretary of the electoral panel in each of the local governments and the returning officers in each of the wards? The simple answer was that it was a list given to them by the state exco of the party and I made him to realize that the state exco of the party all of them were appointed by Fayemi, all of them are working for Biodun Oyebanji and all of them are in his campaign team.
So, we made him realise that that was too partisan. You cannot have a football match in which all the officials will be also the officials of one of the teams – the referee, the linesman and everybody. What kind of football match are you going to get? There was not even any attempt to hide any of their evil agenda. 100 percent of all the people that comprised that electoral body that would conduct the election in all the wards were drawn from the campaign team of Biodun Oyebanji and when we raised this observation, his response was that we could nominate 20 people for each of the other (Seven)aspirants to the electoral committee. Of course, if you multiply 20 by seven that will give you 140 out of 531 officials (3 people were appointed for each of the 177 wards). So, he asked we the remaining seven aspirants to each bring 20 people which will bring the total number to 140. 140 out of 531, how is that fair?
After the meeting, I personally drew the attention of the secretary of the electoral committee (Victor Olabimtan, former Speaker, Ondo State House of Assembly) to that anomaly, to the lopsidedness of the whole thing and he called me back to say that our total figure (140) had increased to 177 plus 16; the idea was that at least, there would be one person in each of the wards that will not be Biodun Oyebanji”s person and then we could have one also in the local government that would not be Biodun Oyebanji’s person.
Accordingly, we sent names, I even sent names more than they required thinking that they would be reasonable to see the injustice of what they were doing. We sent the names and they went through the training but in their presence, they were completely neglected and all the election materials and the result sheets were handed over to the pre-selected people from Biodun Oyebanji’s camp and the people from us were completely neglected and were not posted to anywhere, so all our efforts were an exercise in futility.
In fact, my own group of people were stranded there till about 2am, thinking that anything would happen and when they didn’t see anybody anymore, they called me and I had to send my driver to pick them. So, all the names they said we should bring, they never used any of them, they still stuck to all their 531 names all drawn from Biodun Oyebanji’s campaign team, which was the governor’s campaign team anyway.
So, you expect that kind of election to be free and fair when they already had their result sheets a day before and these result sheets were already filled; whatever they were doing on the day of the election was just a make believe and a photo shoot; nothing more than that, the results were already compiled. You can imagine the absurdity of 101,703 votes for Oyebanji. I heard from a reliable source some two, three days before that Fayemi decided that he will make me to come fourth in the election and that was exactly what happened.
So, they just allocated what they liked. We saw all these coming and we contacted the secretary of the electoral committee, Victor Olabimtan to register our grievances and he contacted the chairman and the chairman said we should come in the morning of the primary by 9am to the party secretariat, we (aspirants) decided to go there, I was on my way when I received a phone call from Olabimtan saying that the chairman will not see us again because he read in the social media that we were expressing some grievances and therefore he has called off the meeting.
As if we were in a dictatorship; so, if I am contesting an election and I bought form for N22.5 million and I saw anomalies and lots of irregularities going on, I should not utter anything. Am I a dummy? I think that was a very crude, shameful and extremely arrogant display of power by Governor Badaru; we are not cattle here at all that we will not be able to talk. I think that was very bad, it was very intolerant of him and he was not qualified to lead that kind of team. As a matter of fact, in a very decent society given his closeness to Fayemi, he should have declined to be the chairman of the electoral committee. So, by accepting to do it we knew he was coming to do a hatchet job anyway and he did it in a very crude manner. So, there was no primary that took place in Ekiti, none at all. It was just a display to confirm the premeditated action, to confirm Oyebanji as the candidate of the party.
What about the protest you staged?
What happened at the party secretariat that day was not a protest per se; we came to see the chairman and not seeing him made us to address the press. It was not an organised protest. We (other seven aspirants) had agreement to see him( Badaru) at the party secretariat that morning and on my way there, I received a phone call from Olabimtan that the chairman had decided not to see us anymore because he had read in the social media that we had expressed some grievances.
What step or steps have you taken after the primary?
Well, there are some internal processes by the party that we have to follow. They set up an appeal panel and we have all submitted our petitions stating our grievances and all that we observed in the primary. The long and short of it is exactly what I have told you – the anomalies that we saw, the fact that the whole thing was already prearranged to handover the ticket to Biodun Oyebanji. So, we have made our positions known and the fact that the chairman was too intolerant that he could not even receive us, which means he was too much determined in perpetrating the fraudulent actions.
Do you see something good coming out of the appeal panel?
I don’t know, but if the conduct of the primary itself is anything to go by, I am not too optimistic that anything will come out of it. I am not too optimistic. Buni has not interfaced with us. Ordinarily, they should have announced the composition of the two panels days before (Panel for the primary and panel for the Appeal). We only saw them like rumours on the social media, however, we wait to see what the appeal panel will say, but I am not too optimistic that they will do justice because it seems to me that the hierarchy of the party led by Buni who is very close to Fayemi and a few of them are holding the party in the jugular; these people had made up their minds to hand it over to Fayemi’s crony here in Ekiti, so I am not expecting that anything good will come out if it.
Oyebanji has promised to reach out to his co -contestants on best ways to resolve the grievances and enlist your support for effective campaign ahead of the coming poll, how do you see this?
I don’t deal with fraudulent people. I have suffered in politics because of my principles. If you handled the primary genuinely, free and fair, of course, I will extend my hand of fellowship to you. I am not crying wolf when there is none. I have told you all that happened; they are what you can verify, all the people that conducted the election were from one campaign team. How can I say now that I want to ratify that fraud?
With your previous experiences and the recent one, will you still consider aspiring again?
That is for God to determine. I don’t know. Even this one that I came out was the miracle of God because the intention of Fayemi and his cohort was to paralyse me politically so that I will not be able to function politically but God did not answer their prayers; to that extent, I give God all the glory.
With the emergence of Biodun Oyebanji and Olabisi Kolawole as the flagbearers of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) respectively, both of whom are from Ekiti Central Senatorial District and now that the primaries are over, what becomes of Ekiti South, the district where you come from?
You see these two Ifas (Fayemi and Fayose), they are sitting on the neck of Ekiti people, suffocating the people. They represent the forces of darkness that have not allowed Ekiti to move forward, yes, these two people. They deliberately cooperated in ensuring that from the beginning, they reached an agreement more than two years ago to deny Ekiti South the candidacy of any of the major parties. Whatever the case, you know they have a very cozy relationship nowadays; they meet with each other. I even understand one finances the other to ensure that their two candidates come from the same zone. How wicked and terrible! I only pray God will deliver Ekiti people from these evil forces, these forces of darkness. These people that are so pompous and arrogant, that think only of themselves are not the people and who have completely neglected one side of the state, the judgement of God will come upon them that is what I can say.
Still on Ekiti South, what do you think is likely to play out from the zone in the coming election?
The two major parties have denied Ekiti South the tickets of their parties. I am for the Ekiti South issue, I am for it because I think it is pure injustice particularly when Fayemi was the first beneficiary of zoning in the state, the only basis he was handed over the ticket in 2007 was because of the so-called North agenda, that the North had not done it before; and to see his hypocrisy as a person, you that was a beneficiary of zoning are now trying to deny it or deny other people; I think that is unprincipled, that is pure hypocrisy and of course, not unexpected from people of that character. I am for Ekiti South Agenda, I still want somebody from Ekiti South to emerge, how that will be feasible way forward, I don’t know, but at least in the present election, I don’t know, but anything can happen.
Do you think the APC has done enough to get the support of the people in the June 18 poll, as some say the current administration has not performed to expectation in the state?
The performance of the current administration is a complete disaster. The governor is not loved by the people. I can say that without any fear of contradiction.
But winning an election, sometimes is not dependent on some of these factors. If we go by the anger of the people, then I will say that even none of the two candidates can win because people are really aggrieved in this state right now.
People are very angry at both parties, even non partisan people who are ordinary Ekiti citizens are not happy; 90 percent are not happy. What the two of them conspired to do was to produce two bad products and then force them on us, leaving us with no other choice; that is what they have done. Two bad products, no choice, and that was why I said they represent the forces of darkness holding the state down. How do you choose from two bad products? How do you really make a choice from two bad products? We will see what will happen.