APC won’t hesitate to revisit Edo primaries- Opeyemi

‘APC won’t hesitate to revisit Edo primaries’

The All Progressives Congress (APC) election appeal committee for the Edo governorship primary yesterday threatened to cancel the exercise won by Godwin Obaseki if allegations of misconduct were proven true.The committee warned it might order a fresh primary if it is discovered the exercise was manipulated.

According to the chairman, Opeyemi Bamidele, who dropped these hints while addressing newsmen at the party secretariat,he said the committee has invited forensic experts to examine the ballot papers used for the election.

Bamidele who said the integrity of the party and the process was important, also note the number of aspirants complaining about the exercise.He pointed out that the national secretariat of the party has agreed to extend the deadline for the committee to submit its report.

Bamidele said: “I want to assure all of you that cancelling this primary is not something we are going to blink an eye if it becomes so necessary based on our findings.

“Not only as laymen but also our findings based on expertise that has been placed at the disposal of our committee.

“We are inviting those who are experts in forensic analysis to look into some of these issues because it is either it is not true or it is true.

“If it is true that the integrity of the ballot papers has been compromised, then there is no way the result of such primary election can stand. I don’t think it is an issue we are going to lose any sleep on.”

Bamidele added:  “Governor Oshiomhole led the team to Bayelsa to conduct the primary in Bayelsa. Personally, he wasn’t convinced by the time the results were announced and he put down his foot until another round of primaries had to be conducted in Bayelsa. So he himself set precedence in that respect.

“It is not about individual but about the integrity of the party and the integrity of the electoral process and I want to assure you that if it becomes an issue, we are not going to blink an eye on that but we must all be convinced.

“If we are going to say this must done, we have to know  what basis we are saying that and if we are going to say no the integrity is not compromised, we must also know what basis we are saying that. We just need to be scientific which ever conclusion we draw”.

He stressed: “It is not about the number of petitioners we have but about the issues they raised. A lot of the issues are very weighty, very sensitive issues that could not be swept under the carpet.

“Some of the issues for instance has to do with the integrity of the ballot papers that were used to conduct the primaries in Benin City and as far as we are concerned, we felt that there is no way we could conclude this and submit a report to the party without having to do some manual inspection and possible forensic analysis of the ballot papers if justice on this matter would be done.”