touchaheart Nigeria reports that Yomi Awoniyi, a former deputy governor of Kogi State, claims that Kogi State’s Peoples Democratic Party governorship primary on Sunday lacks credibility.
Dino Melaye, a former senator for Kogi West, received 313 votes to win the primary. With 77 votes, Awoniyi placed second.
Awoniyi, however, characterized Melaye’s votes as the result of a “tainted delegates list” in a statement made on Monday in Lokoja.
I boldly declare that Senator Melaye’s triumph was a pyrrhic one without the slightest doubt. With this triumph, our party’s cohesion and chances of winning the November 11 governorship election are in grave jeopardy.
Senator Dino Melaye was chosen in a flawed primary; the 158 delegates who were elected at the state ad hoc congress on March 29, 2023, were replaced by the appalling Senator Abdul Ningi Congress Committee, who collaborated with Melaye’s highest-ranking supporters within the party hierarchy.
In a fight with eight candidates and a total of 739 votes, Awoniyi said that “to award any aspirant, a total of 158 votes in a contest for 739 votes, is not a fair contest. Due to the unjust advantage given to the favored applicant, it is dishonest, deceitful, immoral, and unwholesome. Dino Melaye, a senator, won the primary through fraud.
This hollow win may appear to be a done deal, but even after the governorship vote on November 11, 2023, little is expected to change. Many people might be surprised to learn from the aforementioned that I don’t necessarily place the blame for our current situation on Senator Dino Melaye. He needs to examine his actions to determine if he has lived up to his role as a celestial counselor, which he claims to be. But I condemn his enablers.
In a statement released on Monday, Melaye, meantime, gave God the glory for making him the PDP’s choice for governor of Kogi State.
He declared,
Today, April 16, 2023, the Almighty God demonstrated his might in my life by answering to my Biblical name, Daniel. He battled for me and won the victory, which I accepted on behalf of the other candidates, the outstanding PDP supporters inside and outside of Kogi State, and the decent citizens of our beloved Kogi State.
Following the democratic sacrilege committed by the All Progressives Congress in Kogi State about 48 hours ago and the electoral revulsion belching out of Adamawa State, it is heartening to see the PDP show the world that Nigeria is not the jungle that the APC paints it as in the recently held elections over the last 50 days.
I thank the leaders of our party at the national, State, local, and ward levels, my dear brothers who advanced the cause of democracy in this contest, and our many supporters who made sure that peace reigned, decorum prevailed, and conflicts were contained throughout the process,” the statement reads.
