Some Aspirants in the governing All Progressive Congress, APC, in Ondo State who obtained the nomination forms to contest the "butched" local government election have dragged the party to the office of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC) over an alleged fraudulent act.
The angry aspirants who are under the auspices of the "Conference Of APC Councillorship Aspirants In Ondo State, Nigeria" claimed they were defrauded by the APC party leadership in a sum of One Hundred and Twenty-Two millions naira (122, 000, 000) after failing to hold the poll.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State had upon inception promised to conduct election int the eighteen Local Council Areas of the state and had subsequently set up the members of the Ondo State Independent Election Commission (ODIEC), a body responsible for the poll.
Professor Yomi Dinakin, headed the ODIEC following his appointment by Governor Akeredolu while the local council election was scheduled to hold on December 1, 2018, but failed to hold due to several litigations in court stopping the conduct of the poll.
But in a petition filed to the office of the EFCC and signed by the spokesman for the aspirants, Mr Orire Akindona, revealed how the leadership of APC in Ondo state "fraudulently collected a sum of One hundred and twenty-two million naira from councillorship aspirants" that show interests in the butched local council election.
The copy of the petition which was obtained by Sahara Reporters and copied to Directorates of the State Security Service (DSS), specifically accused Ade Adetimehin, the Ondo State APC Chairman of taxing each of the aspirants the sum of N20,000 before collecting the interest form to contest the poll.
The angry aspirants explained how they met with governor Akeredolu in order to retrieve their fund since the poll could no longer hold but failed to listen to their demands despite an expansive meeting in his office.
They are, however, asking the anti-graft agency to investigate and prosecute the leadership of APC led by Adetemihin in Ondo state for allegedly defrauding about one thouand five hundred aspirants of the party from the 302 wards of the state who had shown interest in the race.
Their petition read : "We the entire ONDO STATE APC COUNCILLORSHIP ASPIRANTS of about One Thousand Five Hundred (1500), hereby seek your intervention into the case of fraudulent act being perpetrated by our state chairman, Mr Ade Adetimehin who,sometimes September last year defrauded us of money running into One Hundred and Twenty-Two million naira(122, 000, 000).
"In August 2018, the Ondo State Independent Electoral Commission(ODIEC) announced that there would be elected into local government area council on the 1st December 2018 and our party chairman Mr Ade Adetimehin asked all interested members to obtain Councillorship nomination forms at the rate of #100,000 and paid party development fee of #20,000 each. This is different from thousands of naira we expended in course of securing three-year tax clearance and traversing our various wards for consultations and campaigns.
"We have in good authority, with our statistics that, an average of five aspirants obtained the nomination forms from each of the 203 wards across the state, which accumulates to one thousand and fifteen(1,015) aspirants.
"It is indisputable fact that neither the primaries nor the election into local government offices were held. We, therefore, expected our party APC led by Mr Ade Adetimehin to return our money since there were no primaries despite fulfilling all requirements as enshrined in the party election guidelines and party constitution.
"We then wrote to the governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu on 27th March 2019 to grant us audience in order to interact with him on how we can get our money back since there were no primaries, which he granted us on the 5th of April, 2019.
"But unfortunately in the meeting attended by Mr Adetimehin himself, the governor told us point blank that he has no money to return to us. He told us to see the party chairman(Adetimehin) and his executive for whatever related to our money since we have evidence of payment.
"After our meeting with the governor, we mobilized our ourselves to meet the party chairman Mr Ade Adetimehin at the party secretariat in Akure, the state capital.ln his address, he pleaded with us that he would help us to talk to the governor to replace us with serving caretakers supervisory councillors.
"He did not tell us how we can get our money back whereas he knows very well that, it's impossible for Mr governor to put us all into the local government as supervisory councillors at the same time because of our numerical strength.
"As law-abiding Nigerians who do not want to take law into our own hands, we strongly appeal to you to use your good offices in compelling Mr Ade Adetimehin and his cohorts to refund our money, fraudulently obtained from us under the pretence of conducting election into local government offices.
"Sir, it is also our prayer that you take up this matter with utmost alacrity for investigation and commit Mr Ade Adetimehin to justice for act of criminality. We urge you to give these complaints urgent attention it deserves. We believe that your quick intervention will hasten the refund of our money and correct the injustices done to, well over One Thousand aspirants" their petition read.
Sahara Reporters investigation into the petition before EFCC has shown how the aspirants were "cajole" to obtain the interest form.
Document obtained by our reporter revealed how the aspirant collected the APC nomination form and paid into the party's state account after showing an interest to contest the local council election.