Meeting in Abuja last night, party leaders resolved to forge along with the outgoing governor’s decision with a pledge to support him despite what some party apparatchiks claimed were increasing evidence of systematic rigging by the victorious PDP.“We will not contest the decision,” a party source present at the meeting told Vanguard last night.
The pressure on Fayemi, Vanguard learnt, came from many party leaders mostly from the South-West, who complained that the governor was too quick in conceding victory.
They cited what they claimed as glaring evidence of election offences which they claim tilted victory to Fayose.
“We will make a declaration in the next few days,” one of the lawyers involved in the mobilisation of evidence for a possible petition told Vanguard yesterday before the party elders took the decision to back Fayemi’s concession of victory.
Before the meeting, some of the senior party officials, Vanguard learnt, were angered that Governor Fayemi took his stance without consulting the national leaders of the party.
Party leaders based in Lagos, Vanguard learnt were taken aback by the concession speech of the governor, while they were yet studying the development.
Among the evidence being compiled to present a petition, Vanguard learnt, is the allegation that the ballot papers used in the election were scientifically programmed to obliterate votes.
Party officials, it was learnt, were miffed by the result of some polling stations, where some of the national leaders of the party voted with members of their families.
In one instance, a national leader of APC, who went to a polling station with 11 members of his family, was enraged to find out that Fayemi scored one vote out of more than 50 votes recorded at the unit.
The APC, by its decision not to contest the declaration of Fayose as winner, sources said, is now expecting PDP and the Presidency to show good faith in the forthcoming election and resolve some past controversies including the debacle that split the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, last year.
Source: Vanguard
