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From Fred Itua, Abuja
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and aspirant for the Ekiti North Senatorial District ticket, Senator Ayodele Arise, has insisted that the recently conducted primaries of the ruling party were a sham and cast aspersions on democracy.
Senator Arise made the remarks at the weekend while speaking with journalists in Abuja. The APC committee that supervised the process had declared the sitting lawmaker representing Ekiti North, Senator Cyril Fasuyi, the winner.
Aside from Senator Arise, other contenders for the ticket, Honourable Dipo Bamisaye and Dare Owolabi, have also dismissed the outcome as fraudulent and manipulated.
Senator Arise, who represented the senatorial district between 2007 and 2011, declared that the ruling party has continued to pay lip service to internal democracy.
He said: “When we talk about internal democracy, it is still a very big challenge. It’s one thing for us to have a Constitution, it’s another thing for people to try to circumvent it or the guidelines for any election. That was demonstrated in no small measure when I tried to come back through the primary.
“Because I knew what was in the pipeline so I went into it to prove a point. It will be a shame if some of us passed through this country and we dont have the voice to correct the anomalies and let people know that if we want to practise democracy, let us practise it. If we don’t want it, it’s a different kettle of fish.
“The experience I had during the primary I really don’t want to over beat that because I believe the chairman of the party has spoken with Mr. President and I think they are looking at all the challenges and i am sure those of us who worked and won our elections will be given our mandate in due course.”
Arise expressed the hope that the appeal panel put in place by the APC National Working Committee would do justice to his petition.
“I am not lobbying but I have put the facts on the table and I have presented to those people reviewing the election and I believe we still have men of good conscience at helm of affairs in this country who knows what is right.
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“Moving forward, we should put some guidelines in place to ensure that people don’t misunderstand democracy to mean that a person in power is appointing people to different positions.
“We want to showcase the best in our country and we want to show that we understand what democracy is all about. We want to see who are the people that the community people or those voters want to represent them.
“So, i will say that there will be some changes and this practise is an ongoing, learning process and I believe they should continue to improve as we move on. There are so many things that have improved for the 27 years in our electoral process and we have to give kudos to those that have fine-tuned some of the processes.
“As we discover problems, people respond to them and I believe, more than anybody else that our President has been very proactive in terms of fixing some of these challenges, working on it and ensuring that corrections are made before it’s too late.
“So, as far as the internal democracy within parties is concerned, we still have quite a distance to cover but I believe that we will continue to improve on daily, quarterly or yearly basis.”
The aspirant attributed the crises trailing the party primaries to the overbearing influence of sitting governors.
He said: “The issue of the governors is still a major problem in terms of trying to get to the Senate. Even when you aren’t contesting against them, if you aren’t their favored candidate, chances of your making it is a little bit very challenging.
“But why is it so is because governance and political office in Nigeria has been looked at a source of building wealth.
“When a person becomes a governor, somehow the money coming for the commonwealth should be used for everybody but a sizeable part of it is actually cornered and annexed. So for you to want to unseat a governor who wants to go to Senate is a very difficult task. That’s because of the quantum of money that he has which is actually public fund is very worrisome.”
