By ‘Dotun Akintomide
Amidst brewing crisis and alleged irregularities, a Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party from South-South, Uche Secondus has emerged National Chairman of the party.
Secondus was declared National Chairman of the party after polling over 2000 votes at the party’s convention in Abuja. Result was announced in the early hours of Sunday.
Meanwhile, Secondus’ close contender, Prof. Tunde Adeniran garnered 230 votes.
While DaarCommunications Ltd founder, Raymond Dokpesi got 66 votes, Taoheed Adedoja had no vote.
Similarly, Umar Ibrahim has emerged winner of the National Secretary of the party with 1549 votes to defeat Abubakar Mustapha who polled 371 votes and Nenadi Usman who got 287 votes.
Senator Gamawa Babawo Garba also emerged winner of the Deputy National Chairman of the party after polling 1316 votes to beat six other contenders.
Recall that five aspirants earlier withdrew from the Chairmanship race.
Those who withdrew include; Bode George, Jimi Agbaje, Gbenga Daniel, Rasheed Ladoja and Remi Olusegun.
However, two Chairmanship aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party , PDP, Chief Raymond Dokpesi and Prof. Tunde Adeniran have rejected the outcome of the party’s national convention and the process that led to the emergence of the key officers.
The aspirants announced their positions in separate interviews with newsmen at the venue of the convention, on Saturday in Abuja.
Dokpesi, the 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 that 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 PDP 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, Director, Media and Publicity of the Adeniran Campaign, called for the cancellation of the entire exercise.
He accused Governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers and Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti of being the masterminds of the unity list distributed to the delegates.
“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” he said.
He, however, called on the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the party to takeover the affairs of the party until proper election would be conducted, since the National Caretaker Committee has been dissolved.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the rejection of the unity list by the frontline chairmanship candidates, was done before the final collation of the elections results.
