Two chairmanship aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party , PDP, Raymond Dokpesi and Tunde Adeniran have rejected the outcome of the party’s national convention and the process that led to the emergence of the key officers.
Raymond Dokpesi later recanted his position and congratulated Prince Uche Secondus, the winner of the party’s poll for the chairmanship.
The aspirants announced their positions in separate interviews with journalists at the venue of the convention, on Saturday in Abuja.
Dokpesi, the media magnate said he rejected the elections following alleged distribution of a so-called unity list to delegates, describing it as a charade that may destroy the party.
Dokpesi said that the process of voting had been rigged, following the distribution of a unity list containing names of candidates believed to have won elections into various National leadership positions in the party.
He explained that the 21 names of candidates contained in the list appeared on the ballot papers as number one and in the voting booths as number one.
The list has Uche Secondus, a former chairman of the party as the new chairman.
Dokpesi said complaints were lodged to the chairman of the PDP electoral committee Gabriel Suswam who confirmed that he had seen the list with some delegates but he was overwhelmed.
Dokpesi said it was unfortunate that a party which was just getting out of a major leadership crisis would be involved in acts of impunity and election malpractice.
He called on the party leadership to urgently rectify the anomaly before it becomes another major challenge in the party, ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Similarly, Taiwo Akeju, Director, Media and Publicity of the Adeniran Campaign, called for the cancellation of the entire exercise.
He accused Governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers and Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti of being the masterminds of the unity list distributed to the delegates.
“We reject the entire electoral process. The election has been grossly compromised to achieve a predetermined end.
“The illegal unity list is prepared by governors Wike and Ayodele Fayose to foist on the entire delegates” he said.
He, however, called on the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the party to takeover the affairs of the party until proper election would be conducted, since the National Caretaker Committee has been dissolved.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the rejection of the unity list by the frontline chairmanship candidates, was done before the final collation of the elections results.
