From Noah Ocheni, Lokoja
Ahead of Today’s PDP governorship primaries in Lokoja, two aspirants, the former deputy governor of Kogi state, Arch. Yomi Awoniyi and Bolufemi Rotimi, and stakeholders from Kogi west senatorial district of the party have threaten to boycot Sunday Governorship election over alleged falsification of ad-hoc delegates lists.
Arch. Yomi Awoniyi alleged that the official lists from the March 29, 2023 delegates Congress as certified by INEC was erroneously manipulated by certain group of persons to favour a particular aspirant.
The former deputy governor who handed down the warning at a press conference in Lokoja on Saturday night disclosed that one hundred and fifty Eight delegate names were replaced with people who are neither members of the party nor those who did not participate in the Congress.
“Despite complaints from stakeholders and Aspirants from western zone and the Eastern District of the state regarding the mysterious tinkering from the original list as declared by Abdul Ningi led delegates election panel, the issue was not addressed till today”. Awoniyi added.
He alleged that when the final list was released ,158 delegates from the seven local Governments Areas that make up the zone were replaced with some names only known to those who want to favour a particular aspirant.
He lamented that some aspirants’ and National delegates names were allegedly omitted from the final list as submitted by the Ningi panel, stressing that it took the efforts of the aspirants to compel the Headquarters to correct the anomalies.
“All what we are warning is for the party to come up today with the original list which is in their domain. Anything short of this, the party would be consumed by the crisis that will erupt” .
”We paid our intent forms and nomination forms and other sundry levies. The only option for the party is to used the original copy from the delegates Congress , endorsed by Security Agencies and the INEC to prevent total collapse of the party.” He warned.
