A senatorial aspirant in Ekiti State, Sir Kayode Otitoju, has said he will sue the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Adams Oshiomhole, and the national working committee of the party over alleged “shoddy handling the senatorial primary in Ekiti North District of Ekiti State.”

Otitoju also said he would take a legal action if the candidate declared as winner of the ticket, Senator Olubunmi Adetumbi, is recognised by the party.

Adetumbi was said to have polled 21,763 in a direct primary election and was declared the winner of the election conducted in Ekiti North by Dr Ibrahim Sule-led APC Senatorial Primary Committee in the State, on Friday.

Four House of Representative’s aspirants from the same district namely Bimbo Daramola, George Fakiyesi, Bunmi Ogunleye and Femi Ajayi, had on Saturday also protested the conduct of the primaries, and decried that the election was manipulated by the committee sent from Abuja to conduct the primary.

Otitoju, while registering his protest at the APC party Secretariat in Ado Ekiti on Sunday, said there was no election in the five local governments that constitute the district on the day, alleging that the figures were concocted in Adetumbi’s favour using security as a cover.

Otitoju, a former Commissioner for Information in the state, from Odo Oro in Ikole Local Government demanded that the NWC should cancel the primary or in the alternative declares him the winner on account of his unblemished track records and having come from a council that has not produced a Senator since the advent of democracy in 1999 in the district.

He explained how political thugs working for one of the aspirants had allegedly slapped and manhandled him at the party Secretariat on Friday while making spirited efforts to lodge a complaint before the committee.

Otitoju called on the governor-elect, Dr Kayode Fayemi to rein in those who have been hiding under his influence to perpetrate electoral heist in the party, in spite of the former Minister’s insistence that he had no anointed aspirant in the primary.

•Excerpted from Sunday Tribune report

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