The results of the Kogi State governorship primaries for the All Progressives Congress (APC) have been contested by some of the candidates who competed.
Among the candidates who disagreed with the results were Yakubu Ajaka, a member of the APC National Working Committee, Prince Shuaibu Audu, Professor Stephen Oseni, and Senator Smart Adeyemi.
According to bendelnews, the former Auditor General for Local Governments in Kogi, Ahmed Usman Ododo, has been named as the APC standard bearer for the election scheduled for November by the secretary of the Kogi State APC Primary Election Committee, Patrick Obahiagbon, on behalf of the panel's chairman, Governor Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State.
Addressing to reporters on Saturday, four of the candidates called the election process that produced Ododo a "sham" and urged the APC NWC to ignore the results.
The team sent to conduct the direct primary and INEC officials, according to Senator Smart Adeyemi (APC-Kogi West), were nowhere to be seen, hence there was no election, he claimed.
It was scheduled for yesterday, he said (Friday) By 2:00 PM, the election was supposed to be over. Results were ready before the voting had started.
This type of rigging is the worst; it was unprecedented. There was not a vote. We are arguing that the INEC should be ready to inform People of the results if someone had the audacity to write them.
"None of the INEC staff members nor the panel chaired by the governor of Zamfara state emerged. We am aware that Governor Matawalle quit because he was dissatisfied with the farce.
"There is a rule that the secretary should not reveal the outcome while the Chairman is not present. Vote allocation was what we had. The Kogi Auditor General is the alleged victor.
The Governor is not the issue; it is the extent of his involvement. There was absolutely no election.
"There was not an election, even though there was supposed to be a straight primary."
Adeyemi, who acknowledged that resentful candidates held a parallel Congress, remained mum regarding the victor.
A rival Congress must be organised by some of us.
"Voting for us in Kogi will be challenging if the APC refuses to do what is right. Democracy was betrayed by what took place. Voting was prohibited, and the results were recorded.
"I want to appeal to the party's leadership to stop the party from disintegrating. One man, one vote is a democratic principle, he continued.
Audu also urged Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the president-elect, to persuade the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led NWC not to submit Ododo's name to INEC.
He stated: "I was at my polling place, I waited until 6 o'clock, and there were no election materials or INEC employees present. The election did not go through since the procedure was a fraud. I would want to request that the NWC investigate the hoax that occurred on April 14.
We don't want the fraudulent procedure to continue since it was.
Ajaka, a different candidate, charged that the people in charge of the procedure had betrayed his trust.