A lawyer, Fazaz Daud, has written a petition to the governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun, asking for his urgent intervention over the replacement of his client, one Osularu Olabanjo Muyiwa, who was said to have won the All Progressives Congress (APC) councillorship primaries for Ward 5, Iperu-Remo.
In the petition dated June 28 and titled ‘Manipulation of Result and Unlawful Replacement of Mr. Osularu Olabanjo Muyiwa, the Winner of APC Councillorship Primaries for Ward 5, Iperu Remo, Ikenne local government with Mr. Efuwape Olaitan Muhammed, Osularu’s name was said to have been replaced with Efuwape Olaitan Muhammed, the incumbent Vice Chairman, Caretaker Committee of Ikenne Local Government.
The letter, a copy made available to Daily Sun, on Tuesday, in Abeokuta, was also addressed to the offices of the deputy governor, Speaker of the House of Assembly and that of the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice.
The lawyer explained that going by the party’s directive to conduct councillorship primaries ahead of the July 24 local government elections, members of APC in Ward 5, Iperu Remo on May 20th came out with 21 leaders/delagates to pick the candidate for the ward.
Daud added that there were initially seven aspirants but four of them later stepped down leaving three others, Bakare Abolore, Waheed Osinaike and Osularu Olabanjo Muyiwa in the race.
He claimed that Efuwape Olaitan Muhammed, a former Councilor for the ward and serving Vice-Chairman of the Caretaker Committee of the local government was one of the aspirants that stepped down and was therefore honoured to be the Returning Officer for the primaries.
He said that at the end of the exercise, Efuwape was said to have announced Osularu Olabanjo Muyiwa with 15 votes as the winner of the primaries, while Waheed Osinaike came distant second with four votes and Bakare Abolore came third with no vote.
“All the leaders and other aspirants were said to have appended their names and signatures to the document announcing the victory of Osularu Olabanjo Muyiwa while the same was also sent to the appropriate quarters of the party stating that he (Osularu) is the party’s flagbearer for Ward 5, Iperu in the forthcoming local government elections.
“My client, was however, shocked to the marrow when on Thursday, June 24, the list of the councillorship candidates for the forthcoming local government elections surfaced on the social media and rather than his name as the Ward 5 Iperu councillorship candidate, the list bore the name of Efuwape Olaitan Muhammed.
“Though my client had written the state party structure to intervene over this crass corruption and unbearable injustice but nothing has been done and this informed my client’s decision to petition the state governor, Dapo Abiodun, for urgent intervention before party members begin dragging themselves to court over this matter that is already generating tension in the governor’s hometown”. The petition reads partly.
Daud noted further in the petition that “the incident negates the strongly held view of the Supreme Court, which says that aspirant who has the highest votes at the end of voting during party’s primaries is deemed the candidate of such party for the election concerned and his or her name will be sent to the electoral body conducting the election”.
