Prince Aderin Adesida who was declared the winner of Friday’s All Progressives Congress, APC flagbearer for the Akure South/Akure north federal constituency, has faulted a call by one of the his opponents and serving federal lawmaker, Hon Mayokun Lawson Alade ‘LAF’, that the exercise should be cancelled for fresh exercise.
Adesida, a former House of Reps member, told newsmen that he had won the primary and he had been congratulated by his two opponents at the venue before some thugs stored the venue to temporarily distrupt the the counting.
Prince Adesida polled 68 votes to defeat his closest rival Mayokun Alade who had 37 votes and another aspirant, Oluwafemi Fadairo also scored five in the keenly contested exercise, but LAF insisted that the process had been undermined by political thugs who caused crisis at the venue.
Lawson Alade told journalists in Akure that the party to declare null and void the primary election held in Akure to pick the party candidate as there was no election held.
Alade said: “It was a sad day in Akure election, every youth in Ondo State, most especially, Akure North/South federal constituency are not really happy as hoodlums came in while they were sorting election ballot and we were coasting to victory and all of a sudden, everything just went wrong.
“As you can see, my agent was beaten and taken away only to find him almost wounded, even me, I had to run for my life to avoid stray bullet.
“As we have it, there was no election and we are hopeful to have a re-run soon.
However reacting, Hon Derin Abiodun Adesida said the result declared was true reflection of the primary, as he had even been congratulated by his two opponents in the exercise.
Adesida said politics should not be a do or die affairs, alleging LAF of orchestrating the crisis at the venue, asking the party’s leadership to disregard his call for fresh primary.
Adesida noted that the APC primary committee reconvened after temporarily distruption of the counting of votes to make official declaration of his candidacy under heavy security cover.
It would be recalled that over 25 journalists from different media organizations including the Ondo State Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Leke Adegbite and his Vice, Hakeem Gbadamosi on friday evening escaped death when policemen exchanged gunshot with some thugs who attempted to distrupt counting of votes at the All Progressives Congress, APC, House of Representatives primary for Akure South/Akure North federal constituency.
Despite heavy presence of about 100 policemen at Ade Super Hotel, Ilesa garage road Akure, the venue of the primary, the political thugs still broke into the place and distrupted the exercise for over one hour before the APC officials reconvened to count the votes.
