BY: Manoah Kikekon
 |
| Akonasu Gbedozin |
Mr. Akonasu Gbedozin the People Democratic Party PDP stalwarts said,
the party may end up not having a House of Representatives candidate for
Badagry constituency in the February election if care is not taken.
Akonasu disclosed this to News Peddlers after the aspirant
Mr. Toviho Olayemi Monday “OBJ” headed to the Supreme Court, seeking Justice
over the upturned victory of the primary election.
Mr. Monday was initially declared as the winner of the
primary election, before a rerun was announced, despite a report from the INEC
resident officer which stated that the rerun did not hold, Mr. Lebile was
declared the winner.
Mr. Gbedozin told News Peddlers that "the challenge to the
legality of Mr. Lebile's candidature continues. In a real sense, if I say I
am something and someone is saying I am not, that shows that there is a vacuum,
which may lead to the Party not having a Rep. candidate in the next election.
"Supporting illegality is not a way to make the system
better, the report after the primary stated that, the second primary election was
not held or conducted in Badagry because the electoral returning officer sent
by the party was nowhere to be found.
"If we complain that
those who participated in the process, lack political knowledge or do not
understand the system, which was why they are doing it the way it is currently.
Some of us the youths, that have attained some level of exposure are not supposed to keep mute while things go wrong.
"What Mr. Monday is doing by challenging the legality of Mr.
Lebile parading himself as the party flag bearer should not be condemned," Gbedozin said.
He maintained that most aspirants who participated in the
first primary elections in Lagos state were dissatisfied with the outcome because
there were several irregularities, which necessitated the rescheduled election of
June 6, 2022.
In some of the affected local governments Badagry was
inclusive, "where some unscrupulous elements decided to hijack the electoral
officers took them to a place better known to them, and compiled a false result," he added.
Speaking with Mr. Monday "I won the first and the second
primary election but at the end of the day, they erroneously declared another
person as the winner, which was why I wrote a petition to the national secretariat,
where an appeal panel set up, and we all appeared before the panel.
"Each candidate went there with delegates that voted for us during
the election, the total number of the delegates was 34, and about 30 of them
followed me to Ikeja, to appear before the appeal panel.
"At the end, the panel having heard our side of the story and
the testimony of the delegates that had voted for me, declared Mr. Monday as
the winner but it was Mr. Lebile's that was announced instead.
"Challenging the candidature of a party does not mean the
party does not have a candidate, PDP has a candidate for House of
Representatives in Badagry but we hope court will rule otherwise," Mr. Monday said.
He added that during the second primaries, the party electoral returning officer was hijacked and held somewhere and a result different from what was compiled at the approved center for the primary election was submitted.
"When you look at the history of Badagry politics, this is the first time we will go this far to challenge the outcome of an election, we have never had this before, Badagry is known for peace but our police have been infiltrated by some elements that feel they can come from anywhere to hijack leadership believing anything goes in Badagry.
"I have taken it upon myself to fight it to the end. Badagry
is not just a free land where anything can go, all that we are saying is that
the right thing should be done and the peoples voices should count," he said.
Barr. Abayomi Medemaku a lawyer and PDP chieftain told News
Peddlers that “Since the matter is before the court already, I know the court
will decide either in his favor or not.
"The court knows how to decide on this matter, so for the first
and second court to have decided in support of Mr. Lebile that means there is
something in favor of Mr. Lebile that you are not looking at.
"If the Returning officer who was sent from Abuja says the second primary election was held and the INEC resident electoral offer who sat down in his office now said it didn’t hold then I don’t know who the court will believe, because I know the court will believe the Returning officer more than the resident electoral officer.
"Since the Returning officer is the one that oversees and
conducts an election, he said the election was held."
Barr. Abayomi further claimed that "the report of the INEC resident officer in law, is regarded
as hearsay, anything you didn’t experience in first hand and was given a
report for, is hearsay, which is different from that of the Returning officer,
who said he was there and claim to have conducted the primary election.
"The difference is that one of the statements is hearsay, and
the other is a fact, which might be a lie but nobody has proven it to be a lie.
And were the delegates that claimed the election did not hold a witness in the court?
"What most people do not know is that anything, you do at the
High Court maybe you failed to call some witness or didn’t present some
document, and the judgment is passed, you can not call any witness or document
at the Appeal Court. It is what you did at the lower court that the Appeal
Court, will look at and say based on the evidence presented at the lower
court, does the judge decided the case rightly or not. I think that is what is
affecting the outcome,"
"Probably If they had presented all the necessary documents
and the available witnesses and the hearsay evidence of the INEC electoral
officer, at the High Court, the outcome may be different," he said.
Edited by: Daniel Dovoeke