Fayose insists South-West PDP congress was rigged, says dead, sick people were accredited

Former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose has insisted that the recent election of officials of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-West was riddled with manipulations.

At the end of the congress which held in Osun State on Monday, April 12, 2021, Ambassador Taofeek Arapaja, the candidate supported by Governor Seyi Makinde faction emerged as the new South-West Zonal Vice Chairman of the party with 343 votes, while Dr Eddy Olafeso backed by the camp of Fayose got a total of 330 votes.

However, Fayose while speaking on Channels TV Politics Today programme on Wednesday insisted that the election was rigged.

The former governor maintained that Mulikat Adeola-Akande, a former Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, identified dead and sick people on the accreditation list.

He said, “The leader of the transport union in Oyo State came to the venue publicly looking for my head. It was public knowledge.

“We compelled them to announce publicly how many people were accredited. They resisted that and said they will announce state-by-state. The norm is for you to announce accreditation and tell us how many people came and how many votes are expected.

“By the accreditation, they initially said Oyo state had 115 people list, 104 accredited. Out of 104, 82 people voted. At the end of the exercise, the accreditation was 675, publicly announced.

“Ekiti voted first, followed by Ogun, Lagos, Osun then they purposely allowed Oyo to vote last.

“When you look at the alphabet, you will realise that a game was obviously going on.

“In Oyo, they told us 177 were listed. Hon Mulikat protested and said, ‘this man is dead, this man is dead, this man is dead, this man is sick, this one is abroad, this one is aged’. They came back and told us 165. This is the game going on in the entire process.”

However, Fayose said he accepted the outcome of the congress because he was not ready to defect to another party.