16th April, 2023
By Richard Elesho
Former Kogi Deputy Governor and aspirant for the state PDP governorship ticket, Yomi Awoniyi, has vowed to reject any alteration to the authentic delegate list for the primary election scheduled for Sunday, 16 April.
He said any effort to use a fake delegate list would be rejected.
Awoniyi made this known at a press conference in Lokoja.
He told journalists that attempts are ongoing to use a delegate list that is completely at variance with the approved one for the primary.
The aspirant said PDP was a party bound by laws and as a bonafide member of the party in the last 25 years, any attempt to make nonsense of the party’s primary would not be acceptable.
Also contributing, another aspirant, BoluFemi Rotimi stressed unequivocally that the approved list must be used, adding that failure to do so would lead to total cancellation of the election and serious crisis.
Likewise, another aspirant, Tajudeen Yusuf said the doctored list was meant to accommodate people who are not even members of the party in a bid to impose an aspirant on the party.
Tajudeen said if his name could be removed from the delegate list and only returned after serious petition , then it was better for it not to be there, adding that the law would be used to tackle the problem.
When asked if the entire state list was tampered with, he responded that an injury to one is to all as those of Kogi East were returned , adding that removing just a a name in the list as given by INEC, made the list unacceptable and should be rejected in totality.
“After our petition, the con men thought it wise to return names in the East, those of West were totally mutilated while the names of Central was a little bit tampered with.
The PDP delegates list has generated much controversy of late.
Few days ago, a group led by Faruk Adejoh, a chieftain of the party accused another aspirant, Senator Dino Melaiye, of scheming to change the delegates list.