Senator Biodun Olujimi (Ekiti South) has pulled out of the ongoing People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primary election in Ekiti State shortly after the exercise commenced.
Addressing journalists in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti state capital, Biodun Olujimi said her decision to withdraw from the primary was informed by alleged irregularities during the accreditation of delegates.
The PDP chieftain said she could not be part of a political process that had excluded party delegates who are mainly her supporters, adding that development runs against the tenets of participatory democracy.
Senator Biodun Olujimi noted the accreditation exercise was fraught with irregularities and sabotage with the list of delegates brought by Governor Udom Emmanuel-led electoral team allegedly doctored in favour of a particular aspirant.
Olujimi said other aspirants have the full complement of the delegates from their local government given to them by the party while she was given only 12 from her local government.
According to him: “I pulled out because every other aspirant has full compliments of delegates from their local government. It pleased the party to give me only 12 automatic delegates in mine.
“I have six local governments in my district as a sitting senator. They gave full compliments of delegates to somebody in four of my local government. And the two that were left, including my own local government. They gave me twelve delegates out of seventy-eight.”
“And in the second local government, they gave me only ten delegates. How do you go from your home with a broken hoe and then, you are going to ask the people to give their own to you to till the ground?
“I feel maybe it is because of my gender or maybe the party feels I have not done enough for it. That is why they would have done that to me.
“So, when they’ve done that to me, it didn’t make sense to continue with the process.”
When asked how the party arrived at giving out automatic delegates to aspirants, she said: “What happened was that for two years, we’ve been fighting over an illegal congress and somehow, a few weeks ago, they approved it for one group.
“There have been two groups that have been fighting. And we said there was no congress because it was hijacked. Two weeks ago, the party approved that one group should take all the fourteen executives, and those of us that had been fighting should wait.”
When asked whether she stepped down for any aspirant, Olujimi said she didn’t step down but only pulled out of the race, instructing his supporters to vote for any aspirant of their choice.