Senator Adeyemi says there was no voting whatsoever in Kogi State APC primaries

ALL Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial aspirant Senator Smart Adeyemi has dismissed the recently-held governorship primaries in the state saying they were a shame as no elections took place with the winner just announced with no ballots cast.

Senator Adeyemi, the lawmaker representing Kogi West Senatorial District, described the outcome of the primary election in the state as a rape of democracy. He added that God will descend on officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) if they agree that the APC primaries election took place.

After the primaries, Ahmed Usman Ododo, a former auditor-general for local governments in Kogi State, emerged as the APC gubernatorial candidate.  Mr Ododo, who scored a total of 78,704 votes, won the direct primary election with a wide margin to defeat six other contestants in the governorship race.

He defeated the distant runner-up, Barrister Mohammed Ozigi Salami who got 1,506 votes, while Senator Adeyemi polled the least number of votes, getting just 311 nominations. However, speaking on Arise television, senator Adeyemi said no election took place and even he did not get to vote.

Senator Adeyemi said: “About eight of us, apart from probably the man that was anointed, had the privilege to vote. In essence, there was no voting anywhere. What they did was to write the result.

"It was a sham, it was a rape of democracy, it was a disgrace, a betrayal of all those who laid down their lives for the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria. I have heard of rigging, if there was voting and we alleged rigging OK we will say were rigged out but in this instance, we were at our polling unit at our ward secretariat, there was no material and nobody present.

"What they did was to invite the chairmen of the local government areas including those of them who were said to have been suspended. They were recalled three days to the election and were given a marching order to collect the material from the panel that came from Abuja and they then went to their closets and filled in the forms and brought some 10 to 15 people within their areas and said they have voted and that was the result.

“While we were still standing at our various wards, we contestants looked at each other. It was 11 o’clock, it was 12 nobody, 1 pm nobody. We were still there at 2pm when we started hearing the results of the election.

“It is unimaginable. This is a new phenomenon that must not stand because if Kogi State gets away with this, other governors will copy this. There was no election. Ask my colleague, ask the security service and ask the Inec people unless they want God to descend on them. There was no voting.”