Brazen, shameless auction, ADC chieftain slams party’s presidential primary

A chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, Ibrahim Wala, has backed the rejection of the party’s presidential primary election process.

PidomNigeria Online reported that presidential aspirant and former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, had in a post on his X handle on Tuesday rejected the results of the primary election.

Amaechi said the process failed to meet the standards of transparency and fairness promised by the party.

Reacting in a Facebook post on Wednesday, Wala described the exercise as a betrayal of the democratic ideals the party claims to represent.

“What we witnessed during the primary elections was not a democratic primary; it was a brazen, shameless auction that betrayed every value the ADC promised to uphold,” he said.

Wala said the conduct of the election reflected the same practices the ADC often criticises in the ruling All Progressives Congress.

“While ADC publicly criticises the ruling APC and INEC for vote-buying and result-writing, the actors sent to conduct our own primaries became the very monsters we swore to fight,” he stated.

Wala also called on former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to distance himself from what he described as “dirty, concocted primary election results.”

He urged Atiku to reject the outcome of the exercise, warning that accepting the result would damage the credibility of the ADC’s message of democratic reform.

He said young aspirants who believed in the ADC as an alternative political platform were unfairly treated during the exercise.

“The greatest casualties of this daylight robbery were our young, fresh political aspirants. They came into this process believing in the alternative platform of the ADC, only to end up as the poor, bruised victims of this sham process.

“How can we claim to offer a rescue mission for Nigeria when we are practising the same impunity that brought the nation to its knees?” he asked.

He added that he stood with Amaechi in rejecting the outcome of the primary.

“On this sacred day of Eid, where we celebrate the triumph of faith and sincerity over greed, I join Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi is saying no to this charade. We will not accept results written in hotel rooms,” Wala stated.

Meanwhile, the ADC has said that there was no evidence at present to support claims that there was vote-buying and the presidential primary was rigged or manipulated.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, Abdullahi maintained that no conclusive evidence had emerged to substantiate the claims raised by any of the aspirants.

“We currently do not have sufficient evidence to either support or dismiss those claims. Since the results are still being collated, we have not observed any clear pattern that would substantiate such allegations.

“At this stage, we do not have enough information to conclusively say whether the allegations are true or false. We will have a clearer picture at the end of the process,” he said.