Money given to delegates at party primaries, an appetiser – Akinjo, Ondo PDP Rep

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A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party and member representing the Ilaje/Ese Odo Federal Constituency in Ondo State in the House of Representatives, Kolade Akinjo, tells LEKE BAIYEWU how and why aspirants pay delegates to secure votes at political parties’ primaries

It is a systemic issue and there is no way to gauge it. There is no parameter to measure it. There is no punishment for any action or inaction of anybody. Also, no one is going to blame you for not doing what you are supposed to do and when you are supposed to do it. Who is going to bear your blame? So, when you have an aspiration and you find the aspiration in the midst of a system that is dysfunctional, then you need to adapt. So, what many of these aspirants did was adaptation.

If you are the best , you will pay; if you are the worst, you will still pay. It is just a systemic thing. Those who eventually won, it is still the same. In my area, we had three very strong contenders. We paid equally and people made their choice on who they wanted. The three people paid equal amounts of money. They collected money from the three of us and made their choice on who they wanted.

It was not a consensus. It was on the carrying capacity. The carrying capacity was at a particular benchmark and everybody stopped at that benchmark. Nobody added; nobody subtracted. Then the delegates took time to make a decision on who they wanted. In any case, if you look at that, the election is not proportional to the amount that you spent; no, people still voted their conscience at the end of the day.

They will say that but at the end of the day, there is usually an innermost mind of most of these delegates. The reality is that even at the height and peak of the monetisation, people eventually voted for their choice. What you saw at the end of almost all the elections is a reflection of the mind of the people, even without money. If people had not collected a dime and no money was involved, the result of that presidential primary is still what it would have been.

 

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