Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party Oyo Chapter has reacted to reports of alleged misconduct over last Saturday’s gubernatorial primaries in the state.
Adigun Omotola, the party spokesperson, in a statement made available to InsideOYO.com on Tuesday, denied the allegations made by Bolanle Sarumi, a female aspirant under the party.
It described the allegations as spurious, false and urge all to discountenance them.
The statement reads
RIGHT OF REPLY: A Candid Response to Allegations by Mrs Bolanle Ashabi Sarunmi-Aliyu (BASA) on the Conduct of ANRP Oyo Governorship Primaries
IBADAN 18 September 2018 — Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party Oyo Chapter has been made aware of the false allegations been circulated by one of the aspirants in the successfully conducted governorship Primaries held last Saturday 15th September.The Party affirms that her allegations are spurious, false and urge all to discountenance them.
Some of her allegations are that:
A. 500 members and 8 State Assembly aspirants who are/were her supporters were disenfranchised from the primaries
B. State officials of Oyo ANRP disseminated needed information about the Debate and Primaries on WhatsApp thereby disenfranchising her supporters
C. A party member who assisted with checking of names at the entrance to the hall wore a branded T-shirt bearing the image of Mr Olalekan Ayorinde (the other aspirant)
D. State officials of Oyo ANRP are bias against her.
We repeat for clarity that all the allegations are false and are denied.
The Party election process is simple and straightforward. The guidelines are clear and were shared ahead of time.
ALSO READ: Female Aspirant, Bolanle Sarumi, Loses ANRP Guber Ticket To Lekan Ayorinde
Voters must be FINANCIAL members (meaning that they have paid their dues and therefore have Party identity (ID) cards). The deadline for payment is 48 hours to the primaries going by the present guidelines.
Our Party constitution makes it mandatory to be issued an ID card within 6 months of payment. In Oyo what happened was that it was not realistic to have all ID cards produced within 48 hours and sent across for those who paid close to the primaries. However the list of financial members was available.
The Electoral College therefore requested for a means of identification, ANY means of identification to authenticate the members on the list of financial members. In the absence of a party ID card, ANY means of ID ranging from student ID, worker/union/association ID, even ATM card; voter’s card just any in order to authenticate the individuals was acceptable.
BASA said it was unnecessary to confirm the identities of persons present. She insisted that her supporters had no means of identifying themselves. The Party apologised that unidentified/unidentifiable people cannot be decision makers in our Party by way of vote. That it is for this reason that our constitution makes a demarcation between members and FINANCIAL members. Only financial members vote and can be voted for to forestall a situation whereby anybody on the street can claim to be a member and therefore vote in our internal elections. This was the only contention as our preliminary findings indicate that she brought a crowd of unidentified persons from the street to vote in our election which was not accepted.
In the process she got into unethical practises like writing out names and serial numbers on pieces of paper which she gave out to her unidentified/unidentifiable crowd to memorise and repeat as their names if asked at the accreditation.
This crowd could not identify themselves with ANY form of ID relating to the names they were claiming.
Some of the members of that crowd got so desperate that they impersonated INEC officials to gain entrance into the venue only for the real INEC officials who came for the event to inform Party officials that the people were impersonators.
BASA incited her followers such that one assaulted the National Secretary of our Party and the police had to intervene. This individual even assaulted the men of the Nigeria Police Force!
It is false that anybody was disenfranchised via sharing information on WhatsApp. Most active members of our Party are on WhatsApp. Information shared on our numerous platforms reach everyone including those not on the platform. It therefore the responsibility of all aspirants to spread the official communication on our WhatsApp platforms to all supporters as it has been the practice.
This aspirant had the opportunity to seek redress at the Appeals Committee of the Electoral College. If not satisfied our Party has other channels to achieve this and clearly laid down procedures for seeking redress none of which was pursued.
Aside from spreading malicious falsehood against our Party and the unimpeachable processes of our governorship primaries, she has gone ahead to repeatedly issue threats at officials of our Party. Our Party has therefore made formal written complaints to the Commissioner of Police and Director of the State Security Service (SSS) Oyo State Commands.
Going forward we urge us all to disregard all divisive claims made by this aspirant and her supporters.
