The first runner-up in the Saturday All Progressives Congress primary in Ekiti State, Segun Oni, has threatened to leave the party if he is not treated with respect.
He also demanded that his supporters must be respected and not victimised by the winner of the primary, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, and his supporters.
Fayemi won the primary by polling 941 votes ahead of Oni, who polled 481 votes, among other 31 aspirants.
Speaking with journalists at his country home in Ifaki-Ekiti on Tuesday, Oni raised the alarm that his supporters were receiving threats from Fayemi’s camp.
“I have a responsibility to protect my supporters. But this habit of winners take all and what we are hearing that Segun Oni’s boys will be in the cooler for four years if APC wins is what I won’t tolerate.
“We are not scavenging, neither are we scavengers. We have been receiving pressure from different parties that we should come for the tickets, but we said no, because we want this to be an example and become a new thinking that when you lose the primary, you must stay in your party even when you are popular.
“But if they continue to harass my supporters, I may quit the party, because I have the responsibility not only to protect them but to ensure that they are not taken for a ride,” Oni stated.
Meanwhile, the Ekiti State Governorship Primary Appeals Committee of the All Progressives Congress declared that it did not receive any petition with respect to the conduct of the primary.
The chairman of the committee, Fati Balla, said this while submitting the panel’s report to the APC National Working Committee in Abuja on Tuesday.
She explained that none of the contestants in the last Saturday’s APC governorship primary in Ekiti sent in any petition.
Balla said the three-member appeal committee, which was inaugurated on May 2, sat for three days after last Saturday’s primary.
Other members of the appeal committee are Captain Bala Jibrin (Secretary) and Mrs. Lilian Obenwa.
Balla said, “In the three days that we (the committee) sat, we did not receive a single petition, either in form of writing, telephone call or a text message, which means there was no petition after the primary in Ekiti State.
“We have come before you this afternoon to submit a report. Since there is no petition from Ekiti State, therefore, the committee has wound up this afternoon.”