Seven governorship aspirants under the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ondo State have raised concerns over alleged lack of transparency in the revalidation of the party’s membership register ahead of the April 20 primary.
The aspirants, Jimoh Ibrahim, Olusola Oke, Wale Akinterinwa, Diran Iyantan, Dayo Faduyile, Gbenga Edema, and Jimi Odimayo, expressed fear that the development would hinder the smooth process of the election.
In a letter addressed to the National Chairman of the APC, the aspirants, who frowned at the ‘secrecy’ involved in the revalidation exercise, emphasised that the development portends potential threats to the fairness and integrity of the primary.
With about N300 million paid as dues by some of the members of the party, the aspirants disclosed that genuine party members were not revalidated, raising doubts about the credibility of the exercise.
In the latter, the governorship hopefuls called for urgent intervention and corrective measures to address the shortcomings in the membership revalidation exercise.
According to them, a particular aspirant had been printing fake membership cards as part of an alleged plot to rig the exercise.
They also stressed that the development, if left unattended to, might be trailed by legal and constitutional crises.
Parts of the letter read, “We have been inundated by reports that a particular aspirant has gone ahead with massive printing of fake party slips, which he has distributed to a lot of people who are not even our party members.
“The intention of this aspirant is to corrupt the integrity of the membership register on the day of the primary by making the accreditation of party members impossible as non-party members have already been recruited to flood the venues of the primary election that day.
“This massive and pervasive production of the membership cards will certainly precipitate a situation where everyone holding membership cards, notwithstanding that their names are not on the register, will be allowed to vote without accreditation.”
