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Some aggrieved leaders of the Ekiti State chapter of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have given President Goodluck Jonathan a five-day ultimatum to wade into the crisis rocking the party over the emergence of former Governor Ayo Fayose and Senator Gbenga Aluko as the governorship candidates of the party.
While Fayose emerged the PDP candidate in a primary conducted by the Dr. Peter Odili-led electoral committee, Aluko was chosen as the consensus candidate by 11 other aspirants.
However, one of the PDP leaders in the state, Chief Feyisayo Fajuyi, who led other party leaders to a press conference in Ado Ekiti, the state capital on Monday, called on the president to declare null and void the primary election which produced Fayose.
Fajuyi argued that the process which led to the primary election of March 22 was marred by irregularities saying based on this, the election should be annulled.
Other leaders who attended the press conference were: Chief Bankole Fayori (Irepodun/Ifelodun), Oluwalana Ayobami (youth president), Chief Ajayi (Ise/Orun), Mrs. Foluke Adetunji (Ekiti West), Mr. Akinola Adams (Ijero-Ekiti) and Biodun Ajibadeola (Ikole-Ekiti).
While calling on the national leadership of the party not to treat the issue with kid gloves, Fajuyi said the group might “take a decision that could be unpalatable to the party”.
She said, “We want the President to intervene in this crisis. The primary election of March 22 was a fraud because the ward congresses which led to it were openly rigged. Today makes it the 16th day of our waiting for a redress. While waiting, some leaders have been persuaded to abandon the truth.
“We as a group jointly and individually dissociate ourselves from being part of moving on at the looming peril of failure at the coming governorship polls.
“The purported primaries itself was a daylight r*pe on democracy, and it was widely dismissed as unacceptable by the majority of the party’s stakeholders in Ekiti”.
