The Primary Election Committee set up to oversee Saturday’s shadow election of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo State has assured that the committee will ensure free, fair and credible elections.
The Secretary of the Committee, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who disclosed this while speaking with journalists in Akure, the state capital, said the committee has no predetermined motive but to ensure the credibility of the primary.
The former Deputy Senate President said the accreditation of the eligible 172,025 members of the party will commence between 10:00 and 11:00 am while voting will start immediately and ends by 2:00 pm.
He said, “We expect a seamless exercise, a very peaceful exercise. It’s a family contest. This is not the general election. The only difference here is that this is a progressive state—an APC state. We are determined to ensure that, at the end of the eight years of APC, we are about to start another eight years of another APC administration.
“We believe that whoever emerges as our flag bearer is going to win the general election, and at best, we have been able to assure all of the aspirants that there should be no bitterness.
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“We don’t want to contest that at the end of the exercise we have difficulty bringing everybody together to win during elections. I think everyone is on board.
“We are not here with any predetermination; it is going to be a free and fair exercise. That is the only directive that was given to us.
“I have the Deputy Governor of Kogi State who is standing for his governor. The governor is the chairman of the committee. He’s joining us in the morning, and that is the assurance given to us, and that is the assurance we have already communicated to the aspirants.
“It is a free and fair exercise. Whoever wins on the ground is the winner; there are no two ways about it. We are here to conduct an election.
“I’m not here to resolve differences arising from the revalidation exercise. What I do know is that the register has been given to me, and in the register there is a very marginal, negligible difference between what we have in the membership register certified by INEC and the revalidation registered. I think the difference is slightly under 1,200.
“You should expect that as a party, we have the right to revalidate because people move in and out of a party every time in any event, and not everyone has been alive to financial commitment to the party.
“So as part of that revalidation exercise, we have been able to weed out people who were just nominal members, people who are not financial members. Only financial members are eligible to vote in this exercise. I think that is the major essence of that revalidation exercise.
“We have been giving a register here, and that register has numbers less than the original membership, so there should be no issue of over-voting because the total number of people that will vote are those on the revalidated register and not on the other one. We have already explained it to the aspirants, and I think they are comfortable with it.”
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