MATTERS ARISING: 2115 delegates were accredited for PDP convention but 2296 voted. Really?

The national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) may have come and gone but there are still unresolved issues.

Days to the exercise which held on Saturday, everything seemed all right: delegates’ names were collated from the states without hitches, contenders for the various positions campaigned and presented their agenda while the planning committee for the exercise put finishing touches.

Then came Friday night when things began to fall apart.

Bode George, one of the candidates for the chairmanship position, suddenly withdrew from the contest, describing it as “brazen fraud“.

On Saturday, delegates who have arrived from all over the country trooped to Eagle Square, Abuja, venue of the convention.

THE ‘UNITY LIST’

However, voting had not commenced when a list with the names of 21 aspirants went into circulation.

While results were being collated, Raymond Dokpesi, one of the chairmanship aspirants, raised the alarm that the outcome of the exercise had already been determined by some governors. He said favoured candidates had their names on the ‘Unity list’.

Those whose names were on the list were eventually declared winners.

Mere coincidence? Really?

While the dust raised by the list was yet to settle, Tunde Adeniran, the south-west consensus candidate, stormed out of the convention venue.

Speaking through Taiwo Keju, his publicity director, Adeniran kicked against the use of the unity list and called for the cancellation of the exercise which he said was “sham”.

“We reject the entire electoral process of December 9, 2017. The election has been grossly compromised to achieve a predetermined end in line with the illegal unity list prepared by Governor Wike and Ayodele Fayose and foisted on the entire delegates,” he had said.

THE MISSING LINK

Shortly after Secondus was announced as the winner of the chairmanship race, new facts started to emerge.

Of the 2,233 delegates expected to vote at the convention, 2115 were successfully accredited.

But wait for it…

After votes were collated, it was discovered that the total number of votes cast was 2296 – 181 more than the 2115 accredited for voting.

Secondus polled 2000 votes, according to figures released by the convention electoral committee, Adeniran, 230 and Dokpesi 66.

Who then accredited the other 181? Where did the figures come from? Are there going to be explanations as to the disparities or is the convention tarred with same brush like the others the PDP has had in the past? With each leaving a sad tale of accusations of imposition of candidates and series of court cases.

Efforts to get the PDP to comment on the disparities were unsuccessful as Kola Ologbondiyan, the party’s publicity secretary, neither answered his calls nor replied the text message sent.