The Governor of Osun State, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, has been returned as the winner of the All Progressives Congress Governorship Primaries in Osun State.
The Governor of Kwarra State, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, who is the returning Officer in the election said while announcing the results on Sunday morning that Oyetola polled 222,169 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Moshood Adeoti, the preferred aspirant of the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, who scored 12,921 votes. The third aspirant, Lasun Yusuf polled 460 votes.
The Returning Officer said that the Governor defeated his challenger in all the 30 local government areas of the state.
According to him, a total 247,207voters were accredited out of 408,697 who were registered with a total valid votes at 235,550 in the primaries.
In some of the wards where results are released, the State Governor who was Chief of Staff to Aregbesola has maintained a crushing lead in the election.
Oyetola polled 309 votes at ward 8, Ifofin, Ilesha east, to defeat Moshood Adeoti who got 146 votes.
The early results have made Nigerians especially those from the South West to mock the Interior Minister who fell out of favour with APC, National Leader, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu, as a result of the fight for the control of the party in the state.
Many are of the view that Aregbesola’s political future is under threat for clashing with Tibunu who he served as Commissioner for Works in Lagos for eight years.
However, in what sounds like a swan song, Aregbesola devoted time to picking flaws in the primaries which can be relied on to invalidate the process,
He described the primaries was a sham election which would be challenged in court in a statement by his Media Adviser, Sola Fasure.
The statement read: “On behalf of the Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, I will like to thank you most sincerely for heeding the call earlier this morning to participate in our party’s governorship primary and conduct yourselves most peacefully. You adopted a non-violent posture, even in the face of sore provocation.
“You have demonstrated your loyalty to the party and democratic ideals. You have comported yourselves as Omoluabi in the true essence.
“We have received and continue to receive the reports of the shenanigans of the officials who conducted the sham of an election. We have been inundated with reports state-wide of how your names were expunged from the party’s voters register, which was not made available until this morning, contrary to the convention of making the list available to the candidates before the election.
“We have heard of how party registration cards were being hawked this morning to the supporters of the state governor.
“We have also received reports of how accreditation was not done at all in many wards and how people without party identification just participated and queued behind the governor in many polling units.
“We have received the report from our members and independent observers, how government officials and notable supporters of the governor officiated in the election, how votes were farcically counted in favour of the governor and how the votes recorded for him were more than the number of voters accredited ab initio in many units.
“We have heard of the absence of result sheets and other vital documents for recording results and vital data. We note also the absence of INEC officials in most wards, casting serious doubt on the credibility of the election.”
