At long last, the contentious Ekiti State governorship primary election of the All Progressives Congress has been won and lost.
It was won by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr Kayode Fayemi, and he will be holding the flag of the party in the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State.
Dr Fayemi, a former governor of the state, scored 941 votes out of 2,326 cast by the delegates.
His closest rival and former governor of the state Chief Segun Oni got 454 votes.
Kayode Ojo polled 245 votes to come third, while Femi Bamishile got 179 votes; Oluyede Oluwole, 110; Gbenga Aluko, 83; Daramola Bimbo, 29; Bamidele Faparusi, 23; Babafemi Ojudu, 11; Opeyemi Bamidele, 11; Yaya Kolade, 4; Ayo Arise, 3; and Muyiwa Olumilua, 2 votes.
The delegates had 33 aspirants to choose from, but the number was reduced to 32 when Special Adviser on Politics in the presidency, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, withdrew from the race earlier in the week.
The chairman of the APC primary election committee and Governor of Nasarawa State, Alhaji Umaru Tanko Al-Makura, had earlier told newsmen that as far as his committee was concerned, the number of aspirants remained the same as there had not been official communication from the APC secretariat in Abuja.
Voting had commenced minutes after 1:00 p.m. after initial scare that rain might ruin the exercise again.
The delegates were accredited at designated spots outside the main auditorium of Damlek Events Centre-venue of the exercise and had sat according to their senatorial districts before they filed in for voting in the hall.
Sorting of the votes commenced at about 5:00 p.m. and was concluded at 8:52p.m on Saturday.
Governor Al-Makura had announced before voting began that there were a total of 2,618 delegates, while out if that number, 2,327 was the number of delegates accredited.
Al-Makura had also announced that there were 60 statutory delegates among the number while 35 were party executive delegates.
Before the voting proper, the delegates had arrived into a waiting heavy security at Oke Ila road in Ado Ekiti, where the venue is located.
The delegates, pressmen and other non-security personnel at the venue were searched up to their shoes, in a bid to forestall a repeat of the first attempt to conduct the primary, which was scuttled by hoodlums.
Despite the large presence of security, some hoodlums and unauthorised persons numbering six, were arrested, some with charms, at the precincts of the venue.
Meanwhile, delegates to the Mega Party of Nigeria (MPN) primary election in Ekiti State, on Saturday, elected Mr Sunday Balogun as the party’s governorship candidate in the July 14 election in the state.
Balogun’s election sent shock waves through the state as the relatively unknown man defeated a former deputy governor of the state, Chief Abiodun Aluko and a former Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Bode Olowoporoku, who was also a one-time chairman of Senate Committee on Agriculture.
Balogun emerged after polling 191 votes to defeat Chief Aluko, who scored 146 votes; Senator Olowoporoku, 72 votes and Ambassador Ayodele Ayodeji, who got seven votes.
Twenty-two votes were voided in the election out of the total of 467 accredited voters.
The chairman of the six-man committee of the primary election, Alhaji Isah Nuhu Isah, said he was “very impressed with the conduct of the aspirants and the delegates.”
Alhaji Isah commended the people for their efforts and for being patient and urged the winner to carry everybody along in the scheme of things in the party.
Credit: tribuneonlineng.com
