Ondo Governorship 2024: The Threats to APC Fielding A Candidate

Ondo Governorship 2024: The Threats to APC Fielding A Candidate

The battle for the soul, spirit, and body of the government house, Alagbaka, Akure, and Ondo state is still six months away but the quest for power and dominance by the political gladiators is gathering momentum daily. It is generally believed to be a two-horse race between the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC)and the Peoples

The battle for the soul, spirit, and body of the government house, Alagbaka, Akure, and Ondo state is still six months away but the quest for power and dominance by the political gladiators is gathering momentum daily. It is generally believed to be a two-horse race between the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC)and the Peoples Democratic Party (APC).

All the interested parties in the contest have submitted the names of their candidates and the campaigns are revving up. The main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held its party primaries without pressure and rancour. Among the aspirants is a former deputy governor of the state, Mr. Agboola Ajayi who was declared winner of the election.

However, the dust raised after the ruling political party in the state, the All Progressives Congress (APC) held its party primaries is yet to abate and threatening the prospect of the party in the upcoming elections. At least two of the contestants are not happy with the outcome of the election. They are Mr. Olusola Oke SAN and Senator Jimoh Ibrahim. Chairman of the election committee and the Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Usman Ododo had on 21 April 2024 declared Mr. Lucky Aiyedatiwa, the state governor, winner of the primary election.

”I can confirm that the direct mode of primary election adopted in the 2024 Ondo state governorship primary elections held in all 203 electoral wards in all the 18 LGAs in Ondo state,” Ododo said while announcing the governor as the winner of the election.

The Ondo State governor coasted to victory in 16 of the 18 local government areas garnering 48,569 votes in the primary to beat his closest rival Mr. Mayowa Akinfolarin who polled 15,343 votes in the election. Mr. Olusola Oke’s 14,865 votes got him the third position. The governor also lost Ilaje LGA to third-placed Oke.

Other contestants cried blue murder. They said the primary election was not held in most of the wards and local government areas of the state. A claim countered by several chieftains of the party as untrue. They went on appeal and the Election Appeal Committee of the party could not validate their grounds for objection and the appeals were thrown into the trash bin. But some of them would have none of this and are pursuing other options outside of the party organs.

One of them, Senator Jimoh Ibrahim, a legal practitioner, has gone to court to challenge the victory of Governor Aiyedatiwa as the winner of the election praying to the court for some relief, part of which is for the court to invalidate the outcome of the primary election or a declaration that the Party did not have a validly elected candidate following its rules for the election.

Jimoh Ibrahim’s Case Against APC Primary Election

Senator Jimoh Ibrahim has approached a Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking nullification of the primary election that produced Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa. Ibrahim, in a suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/588/2024, told the court that the April 20 primary election that produced Aiyedatiwa was marred with several irregularities.

The senator, who participated in the primary election as a governorship aspirant, alleged that the primary was unlawful because Sections 221, and 228 of the 1999 Constitution and 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 were grossly violated in the conduct of the primary election.

He alleged non-accreditation of some of his supporters who were delegates in the election and prayed to the Court that the primary election result be set aside and nullified. He also prayed the court to bar the Independent National Electoral Commission from accepting Aiyedatiwa as the APC governorship candidate in the November 16 gubernatorial election in the state.

He also sought an order of perpetual injunction prohibiting Aiyedatiwa from holding himself out or parading himself as the APC governorship candidate.

Senator Ibrahim also asked the court to set aside the purported primary election and compel the APC to conduct a fresh one in compliance with Sections 221, and 228 of the 1999 Constitution and 84 of the Electoral Act 2022.

A lot of party chieftains have argued that the primary election was not an indirect one in which delegates were accredited but a direct one in which every member of the party was allowed to participate if their names were on the register and they possessed a party membership card.

A Semblance to Jimoh Versus Jegede Eight Years Ago?

Those familiar with Senator Ibrahim’s kind of politics claim that once he places his hands on the plow he never looks back or withdraws until the apex court in the land makes a pronouncement on it.

Eight years ago, he challenged the nomination of Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) as the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. The case went up to the Supreme Court on 24 November 2016, a few days before the Governorship Election affirmed the ruling of the Appeal Court, which declared Mr. Jegede as the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo state.

The court struck out all appeals challenging the decision of the appeal court to replace Mr. Ibrahim with Mr. Jegede as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Ondo. The five-man panel of justices led by Walter Onnoghen, acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), said all the issues raised by Mr. Biyi Poroye, factional chairman of the PDP in Ondo state, against Jegede, had been overtaken by the appellate court’s judgment.

“The decision of the lower court on the substantive matter yesterday 23/11/2016, that decision has rendered the instant interlocutory appeal academic as the appellant has the right to against the said judgment, including the interlocutory ruling. In this circumstance, this appeal is hereby struck out with no order as to cost.”Onnoghen ruled.

Could This Be Another ” Zamfara Treatment”?
Four years ago, precisely on 24 May 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the replacement of the All Progressives Congress (APC) members, elected in Zamfara State for different positions, after affirming a previous decision against the party’s primaries conducted in 2018.

The court, in a decision made by a five-member panel, presided over by the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, ruled that there were no primaries conducted in Zamfara State by the APC and that the party could therefore not have emerged as winner in any of the state elections.

According to the judgment read by Justice Paul Galinje, the apex court said: “The APC could not have won the elections since it had no valid candidates in the said polls. The lower court was right to hold that there were no valid elections conducted in Zamfara State. A party that had no candidate cannot be said to have won an election,” Justice Galinje said while reading the judgment.

Two main factions of the APC had approached the court with separate applications challenging the decisions of the lower court regarding the party’s primaries.

In the first request, the National Working Committee of the APC led by its chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, had approached the apex court to challenge the decision of the Court of Appeal in Sokoto State, which had nullified the primaries conducted in the state, amid controversies.

The first set of respondents in this motion was the faction of the party led by a senator, Kabiru Marafa, and 139 others.

The second set was led by another member of the party, Sanusi Liman, and 38 others while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) represented the third set of respondents. A member of the House of Representatives in the state, Aminu Jaji, also served as the 180th respondent in the matter.

In the second appeal, Sanusi Liman and 38 other APC members also approached the court with a motion against 145 respondents comprising INEC and the APC members.

The crux of their applications was for the court to give a verdict regarding the validity or otherwise of the primaries conducted in the APC ahead of the 2019 elections.

The state APC became divided following the decision of the then-incumbent governor, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, to conduct indirect primaries and ensure the emergence of his preferred governorship candidate. It worsened when the national body of the party dissolved the state party executives, three days before the deadline for the conduct of the primaries and barred Governor Yari from participating in the said primaries.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) banned the party from submitting the names of candidates because it said the party failed to meet the deadline given by the commission.

The various factions secured contradictory judgments creating further controversies regarding the candidacy of the elected members of the APC in all polls affecting flag bearers from the Zamfara APC.

Judgments delivered in Sokoto State contradicted another decision by a Court of Appeal in Abuja, allowing Governor Yari’s candidate, Mukhtar Idris, and other APC members to participate in the said elections.

With the Supreme Court judgment, the victories of candidates of the Zamfara State APC in all of the 2019 elections have been nullified paving the way for other candidates, who scored the next highest number of votes to replace them.

Should Senator Ibrahim’s case be considered meritorious by the courts, then, what befell APC in Zamfara may happen to the APC Governorship candidate in Ondo state.

But Ondo State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice Dr. Kayode Ajulo, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, insisted that the direct primary was conducted in strict adherence to the Constitution, the Electoral Act, and the APC’s constitution.

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