The election of Senator Dino Melaye as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for governor of Kogi State on November 11 was viewed as a major threat to the party by Abayomi Awoniyi, a former deputy governor of Kogi State.
This information was made public on Monday in a statement by Awoniyi, a candidate in the PDP governorship primary election that will be held on Sunday, April 16, 2023.
The former deputy governor claimed that the PDP primary was not free and fair, and that Melaye should not have been chosen as the party’s nominee.
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Awoniyi claimed that 158 of the contest’s 739 votes were already given to Senator Dino Melaye, hurting the chances of eight other candidates, further demonstrating why Senator Melaye’s victory was a pyrrhic one.
He also claimed that one of the PDP primary delegates came from the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) during the recently completed House of Assembly elections.
Another illegally imported delegate, according to Awoniyi, is a native of and lives in a different ward from the one where his name first surfaced.
The statement reads, “The primary that produced Senator Melaye had flaws. The dreadful Sen. Abdul Ningi Congress Committee, which collaborated with Senator Dino Melaye’s top party enablers, replaced the 158 delegates who had emerged from the State Ad-hoc Congress of March 29, 2023.
“Giving any candidate 158 votes overall in a contest for 739 votes with 8 candidates is unfair. Because it gives the favored aspirant an unfair advantage, it is dishonest, dishonorable, sinful, and unwholesome. Dino Melaye, a senator, won a rigged primary.
“Imported delegates from Yagba West and Kabba/Bunu, two LGAs that are unquestionably my strongholds for the primary elections, account for 62 of the 158 delegates. 29 of the 46 delegates in Senator Melaye’s LGA, Ijumu, were switched.
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According to Awoniyi, the primary election would have been deemed a free, fair, and transparent process if the delegate list from the Ad-hoc Delegates Congress of the 29th March 2023 had been used.
According to reports, Senator Dino Melaye received 313 votes, while Abayomi Awoniyi received 77 votes in the PDP governorship primary election that was held on Sunday. Melaye was subsequently declared the winner.
