BIODUN Oyebanji, immediate past Secretary to Ekiti State Government, and the assumed preferred candidate of incumbent governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has emerged winner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primaries.
Declaring the winner, Chairperson of the Primary Election Committee and Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Abubakar Badaru, said Mr Oyebanji, who resigned from his post last December to join the race, polled 101,703 out of the total number of votes cast, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
Governor Badaru made the declaration at the State Collation Centre, APC State Secretariat, located at Ajilosun, Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. “It is my pleasure to declare Biodun Oyebanji as the winner of this primary, haven scored the highest votes cast. Haven satisfied all necessary criteria, I hereby declare Abiodun Abayomi Oyebanji as the winner,” Governor Badaru said.
He added that Ekiti APC had 183,560 registered members, out of which 107,877 members were accredited and the total votes cast was 104,983. The chairman expressed surprise at the allegations by some aspirants that they were not consulted, adding that 20 names were submitted by each of the aspirants to be added to the list of the Returning Officers and they were all captured.
Governor Badaru, however, explained that the meeting that was earlier slated for Thursday morning, between the committee and the aspirants was cancelled because there was a security report that the venue was tense. He said they had to call for the assistance of security agents to arrest the situation. The chairman said the primaries took place across the 177 wards and that it was free and fair.
“However, there are pockets of violence, when we receive the results, we will know where we need to cancel, we will. As we have earlier promised, we have ensured a level-playing ground for all aspirants,” the committee chairman added.
On the protest by some of the aspirants, the committee chairman added that he had not received any official petition but only heard about it in the media. He directed that the returning officers of the wards where elections were not held should write their reports and submit to the committee.
The results presented by the 16 Local Government Area Returning Officers revealed that Mr Oyebanji won in all the council areas. The breakdown of the results revealed other aspirants’ scores as follows: Opeyemi Bamidele, 760, Femi Bamisile, 400, Kayode Ojo, 767, Adedayo Adeyeye, 691, and Bamidele Faparusi, 376.
Others were Demola Popoola, 239, and Oluwasola Afolabi, 47, in the “Option A4,” Direct Primary adopted for the election.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that six of the eight aspirants had in the morning protested the alleged hijack of the exercise and called for its stoppage and cancellation.
The other two aspirants absent at the protest were Messrs Oyebanji and Popoola.
