Smart Adeyemi tags Kogi APC primaries as ‘rape of democracy’

Smart Adeyemi, an All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for governor of Kogi State, has called the results of the state’s primary election a “rape of democracy.”

Adeyemi also asserted, in remarks made on Arise Television on Monday, that if INEC authorities concur that the APC primary election was legitimate, God will descend on them.

Ahmed Usman Ododo, a former Auditor-General for Local Governments in Kogi State, emerged as the flagbearer of the APC for the Kogi State governorship election.

Ododo, who scored a total of 78,704 votes, won the direct primary election held on Friday, with a wide margin to defeat six other contestants in the governorship race.

He defeated the distant runner-up, Barr. Mohammed Ozigi Salami, who got 1,506 votes, while Adeyemi polled the least number of votes – 311.

During the AriseTV interview, Adeyemi called the process “a sham and disgrace.”

He railed, “About eight of us, apart from probably the man that was anointed, none of us has the privilege to vote. In essence, there was no voting anywhere. What they did was to write the result. It was a sham, It was a rape of democracy, It was a disgrace, a betrayal of all those who laid down their lives for the enthronement of democracy in Nigeria

Read also:‘A new phenomenon of electoral malpractice,’ Smart Adeyemi rejects APC governorship primary in Kogi

“I have heard of rigging, if there was voting and we alleged rigging. OK we will say we were rigged out, but in this instance, we were at our polling unit at our ward secretariat, there was no material, nobody, what they did was to invite the chairmen of the local government areas including those of them who were said to have been suspended, were recalled three days to the election and they were given a marching order, collect the material from the panel that came from Abuja and they went to their closets and filled the forms and brought some 10 to 15 people within their compound and area and they said they have voted and that was the result.

“While we were still standing at our various wards, we contestants looked at each other. It was 11 o’clock, it was 12 nobody, 1 pm nobody. We were still there at 2 o’clock when we started hearing the results of the election.

“It is unimaginable. This is a new phenomenon that must not stand because if Kogi State gets away with this, other governors will copy this. There was no election. Ask my colleagues, ask the security service, and ask the INEC people unless they want God to descend on them. There was no voting.”

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