Aspirant alleges Osun APC government primary manipulated to favour Tinubu’s cousin

The Secretary to the Osun State Government, Moshood Adeoti, has accused his party, the APC, of manipulating its primary to elect a particular candidate for the September governorship election.

He has, therefore, withdrawn from the primary being held yesterday.

Adeoti alleged that the primary is a mere endorsement of Isiaka Oyetola, whom he alleged is a cousin of APC national leader, Bola Tinubu.

“The primaries was arranged, skewed and designed to favour Alhaji Isiaka Gboyega Otedola, the cousin of the National Leader of our party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” Adeoti’s campaign organisation said in a statement issued yesterday in Osogbo yesterday.

Adeoti said there is no credible register of members with which a free, fair and transparent ‘direct primaries’ could be conducted.

Also twelve of the 17 governorship aspirants condemned the move, saying there was no comprehensive register of APC members across Osun State.

Adeoti also alleged that a “cooked-up register comprising handpicked persons loyal to the emergence of Oyetola was computed, and printed in a firm owned by Oyetola in Lagos.”

Mr Oyetola is the current chief of staff to outgoing governor, Rauf Aregbesola.

The Director of Media and Publicity of Moshood Adeoti Campaign Organisation, Kayode Agbaje, said: “Yes, it is true, we have withdrawn.”

Similarly, a governorship Aspirant in Osun State, Dr. Ismail Abiodun Saka-Layonu’s name is missing in the Osun State APC membership register.

He is one of the 17 aspirants recently cleared by the Party Executive in Abuja, to contest yesterday rescheduled Osun State APC Governorship primaries.

The aspirant arrived his Olusokun Ward 4 polling station in Ede North local council area only to discover that his name was not on the list in the register brought from Abuja.

The presiding officers, Mr. Taiwo Osunsokun and Muraina Habib, spent over one hour to no avail, searching for the name in their register.

The two presiding officials, however, told him to vote even without being accredited.

But Dr. Saka-Layonu, SAN, however turned down the offer saying that would be tantamount to using illegality to support another illegality.

In his words, “since there is no document authorising the Presiding Officers to exercise such discretion, I will not be part of it”.

He, however, implored his teeming supporters to go ahead and vote peaceably.

Speaking to Election Observers later, Dr. Abiodun Saka-Layonu, wondered “how the same National Executives of the Party that cleared and confirmed me as an Aspirant, now left my name out of the State’s Party Membership Register? It is absurd”.

When asked what his next line of action will be, he said, ‘I am appealing to all my teeming supporters to go out massively and vote for me”.