Two National Chairmanship aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party at Saturday’s National Convention, Chief Raymond Dokpesi and Prof. Tunde Adeniran, have rejected the outcome of the exercise.
The aspirants announced their positions in separate interviews with newsmen at the venue of the convention on Saturday in Abuja.
Dokpesi, a media magnate, said he rejected the elections following alleged distribution of a so-called Unity List to delegates, describing it as a charade that may destroy the party.
Dokpesi said the process of voting had been rigged, following the distribution of a unity list containing names of candidates believed to have won elections into various National leadership positions in the party.
He explained that the 21 names of candidates contained in the list appeared on the ballot papers as number one and in the voting boots as number one.
He said complaints were lodged to the Chairman of the Electoral Committee, Gabriel Suswam, who confirmed that he had seen the list with some delegates, but he was overwhelmed.
Dokpesi said it was unfortunate that a party which was just getting out of a major leadership crisis would be involved in acts of impunity and election malpractice.
He called on the party leadership to urgently rectify the anomaly before it becomes another major challenge in the party, ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Similarly, Taiwo Akeju, the Director, Media and Publicity of the Adeniran Campaign, called for the cancellation of the entire exercise.
Akeju accused Governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers State and Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State of being the masterminds of the Unity List distributed to the delegates.
He said: “We reject the entire electoral process.
“The election has been grossly compromised to achieve a predetermined end.
“The illegal Unity List is prepared by Governors Wike and Ayodele Fayose to foist on the entire delegates.”
Akeju, however, called on the Board of Trustees of the party to take over the affairs of the party until proper election would be conducted, since the National Caretaker Committee had been dissolved.
The rejection of the unity list by the frontline chairmanship candidates was done before the final collation of the elections results.
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