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The Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on Political Matters, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, has alleged that the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State loyal to Governor Kayode Fayemi has hijacked the forms for elective positions ahead of next Saturday’s ward congress.
Ojudu, who spoke with newsmen in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital on Saturday, said the development was aimed at depriving other members of the party who are not loyal to the Fayemi’s ‘Tokan Tokan’ group access to the forms, thereby making them unable to contest for positions in the ward Congress as against the mandate of the National Caretaker Committee of the party.
The presidential aide stated that the forms were seized from the ward congress committee sent from the national secretariat to the state on Friday , adding that the committee was financially induced to return to Abuja without performing their duty of making the forms available to interested party members.
He said members of the party in the state had paid money into the dedicated account of the party for the forms, urging the committee to allow democracy to take its course in the interest of the party.
“The mandate was that they should stay and sell the forms for every party member interested. Governors had come to Abuja to demand for the forms but the committee managing the party said no. They invited all chairmen of the state branches and briefed them on the need to allow all members interested in contesting access to the forms.
“When the folks from Abuja arrived Ado-Ekiti yesterday(Friday), they went straight to the party Secretariat, negotiated with the chairman, got paid and handed over the forms to him and returned immediately to Abuja.
“If the forms were meant for the state chairmen, it would have been handed over to them last week when they were invited to Abuja.
“Hundreds of members have paid into the account of the party and now they are being denied access to the forms by the ‘Tokan Tokan’ faction of the party in the state,” he said.
He explained that any attempt to endorse consensus arrangement for the congress would be resisted by leaders, adding that the system if used would spell doom for the party ahead of the 2022 governorship election.
Reacting, the caretaker Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr Ade Ajayi, denied all the allegations raised by Ojudu, describing it as, “frivolous and flimsy.”
Ajayi said that those raising alarm about next Saturday’s congress are “strangers who have no idea of the workings within the party.”
He assured members of the party that everyone will be given a level playing ground.
Ajayi added that the congress committee set up by the state are meeting stakeholders within the party towards ensuring a free, fair and transparent congress that would usher in new leaders at the ward level.