From Tope Musowo, Ado-Ekiti
Aspirants, numbering 47, seeking to contest the Ondo State House of Assembly elections on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have rejected their disqualification by the party’s screening committee, alleging foul play.
Protesting their disqualification, the aggrieved party members, under the aegis of PDP Aspirants Forum, said they were unjustly disqualified despite meeting all the requirements as stipulated by the guidelines of the party.
Speaking on behalf of the forum, Benedict Adewusi, said the screening committee had failed to present to them their clearance certificates after the screening on Saturday as required by the guidelines, only to be told later that they had been disqualified.
He said, “It is the norm of the party to issue the clearance certificate to the aspirants immediately after the screening, but to our surprise, we were not issued the certificates on the same day, only to know later that our certificates were dumped at the reception of the hotel, where they carried out the exercise.
“It was later that we discovered that none of the 47 of us was cleared, inspite of the fact that we had fulfilled all the provisions of part Six of the electoral guidelines of our party.”
According to Adewusi, other aspirants who just decamped from the Labour Party (LP) recently were cleared by the Committee, even though hey did not have their names on the registered list of the party.
“We are aware that all aspirants who just decamped from the LP were cleared when their names were not reflected in the party’s membership list. All these people cleared have not spent 30 days in the party. They don’t have the evidence of purchase of nomination form, they were not even screened, yet they cleared them,” he said.
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