TECHNOCRAT MEDIA, Ado-Ekiti
Biodun Olujimi, senator representing Ekiti South senatorial district and aspirant under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Ekiti 2022 governorship election has pulled out of the ongoing primaries.
In a telephone interview with TECHNOCRAT MEDIA, the senator confirmed her withdrawal from the ongoing Ekiti PDP governorship primary election.
When asked about her withdrawal, she said “Yes, I did”.
Speaking on the reasons for her decision, Olujimi said other aspirants have the full complement of delegates from their local government given to them by the party while she was given only six (6) from her local government.
She said “I pulled out because every other aspirant has full compliments of delegates from their local government. It pleased the party to give me only 6 automatic delegates in mine.”
“I have six local governments in my district as a sitting senator. They gave full compliments of delegates to somebody in four of my local government. And the two that were left, including my own local government. They gave me twelve delegates out of seventy-eight.”
“And in the second local government, they gave me only ten delegates. How do you go from your home with a broken hoe and then, you are going to ask the people to give their own to you to till the ground?”.
“I feel maybe it is because of my gender or maybe the party feels I have not done enough for it. That is why they would have done that to me.”, Olujimi said.
She added that forever reason, she is the only elected official of the PDP in Ekiti State.
When they’ve done that to me, it didn’t make sense to continue with the process.
When asked how the party arrived at giving out automatic delegates to aspirants, she said: “What happened was that for two years, we’ve been fighting over an illegal congress and somehow, a few weeks ago, they approved it for one group.”
“There have been two groups that have been fighting. And we said there was no congress because it was hijacked. Two weeks ago, the party approved that one group should take all the fourteen executives, and those of us that had been fighting should wait.”
“Two local governments were not done in my senatorial districts. We were expecting that they will do the congress so that at least the people of my constituency will have the opportunity of being part of the process. But somehow, it was not done.”
“The party in its wisdom said only automatic delegates will vote in my local government. In my local government, only twelve delegates were accredited to vote.”
She added that she will make a decision on seeking redress very soon.
