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Aspirant, Agents Fault Conduct Of Ondo APC Primary, Demand Action
An aspirant and the agents of two other contestants have raised concerns about the conduct of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary for the Ondo governorship elections.
They allege that based on the conduct of the exercise, plans are being made to favour certain aspirants.
‘Let them Postpone it’
One of the 16 aspirants in the race for the APC ticket, Olugbenga Edema, decried delays in the distribution of materials and called on the party to investigate the process.
“What we are talking about is there should be a credible election that will allow our people to vote and their votes should count,” he said.
“So we are asking the leadership of the party to look into this. If they are not ready for this election, let them postpone it so that the right thing should be done.”
Edema explained that the exercise was being conducted contrary to the schedule, and he faulted the seven-man primary committee led by Governor Usman Ododo of Kogi State with a former Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, as secretary.
He said, “The secretary of that committee that came from Abuja, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, informed us that the collection of voting materials which include the register of voters, that is the membership register, the result sheet, and all the materials they require for the election, will be distributed to the electoral officers whose names he announced to us in each of the 203 wards of Ondo State; that they should come to BON Hotel Parklane Avenue, Akure, and collect their materials. Accreditation will start by 10 o’clock to be completed by one o’clock. Voting proper will start from one o’clock and end at two o’clock, then the announcement of results.”
Contrary to the plan, according to the aspirant, at 10:30 am, materials had not been distributed, even though he and his team had been waiting from as early as 6:30 am.
“At about 9:30 am, His Excellency, the Governor of Kogi State, (Usman) Ododo, came out to tell us that materials have been distributed. At what time? In what places? We don’t know,” said an upset Edema.
“Unfortunately for him, the returning officer and the electoral officer of my ward; in Ward 2, Ilaje Local Government Area, who are residents in Ibadan — I told them to come here today so that they can collect the materials of my ward. Now they are here. They have not been able to collect the materials.
“And he has the effrontery to tell us, all the other aspirants, that materials have been collected and results are being announced at 10 o’clock when accreditation should ordinarily start. So, we have asked him questions and he rushed out because he had no answer to our questions.”
‘Due Process Should be Followed’
Rotimi Williams, the agent for another aspirant, Senior Advocate of Nigeria Olushola Oke, had a similar position.
“We got to this place around 6:30 am this morning. We don’t know when and where the alleged material was sent out to the Ondo South Senatorial District. We are not aware of when those materials were sent out of this place,” he said around 11 am.
Like Edema, he said even though they were at the distribution point as early as 6:30 am, Governor Ododo came around more than two hours later and told them the materials were distributed early in the morning.
Williams said, “The truth of the matter is that there was no electoral material sent out at that particular time we were told.
“Yesterday, we asked for the whereabouts of his Excellence Governor Ododo and we were told that he would be coming in this morning. He came in around 9 am. Shortly after that, he came out and informed us that election materials were sent out early this morning to Ondo South when we have been here as early as 6 am. I don’t know whether it was in the spirit. I don’t know whether they ‘WhatsApped’ it.”
Williams warned that it was dangerous to ignore members of the party who toil to build the party and that due process is needed for the party’s success, rather than the manipulation of results.
“The irreducible minimum request that any party man could ask for his party is that due process should be followed,” he said.
Faulting the actions of the committee set up to conduct the primary, he said, “I think we should take it further from here. They, the committee, were selected from the national office to come to Ondo State and be doing this. Maybe the national Chairman needs to be called to order in this regard and told that ‘look, your men that you sent to this place are not acting according to the guidelines of the party. What we are saying is ‘follow the guidelines’.”
The African Democratic Congress, ADC, has announced Senator Ireti Heebah Kingibe as the party’s flag bearer for the Federal Capital Territory senatorial election ahead of the 2027 general polls.
Kingibe secured a landslide victory in the party’s primary election, polling 17,535 votes to defeat her sole challenger, Mubarak Tijjani, who garnered 806 votes.
Declaring the results at the ADC secretariat in Abuja, the chairman and returning officer for the senatorial and House of Representatives primaries, Abubakar Adamu, confirmed Kingibe as the winner of the exercise.
The primary election also produced candidates for the two House of Representatives seats in the FCT.
In the AMAC/Bwari Federal Constituency, Bala Iyah emerged victorious with 4,937 votes, defeating Yahaya Fatima Goya, who polled 2,015 votes, while Ma’aji Johnson Bello secured 1,546 votes. Ismaila Ishak Ozigi received 105 votes.
For the Abaji/Gwagwalada/Kwali/Kuje Federal Constituency, Alhassan Salihu clinched the party’s ticket with 9,016 votes, defeating Khalid A. Haruna, who polled 2,955 votes.
Officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission monitored the conduct of the primaries.
Governor Umar Namadi of Jigawa State has expressed confidence that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will secure victory in the 2027 presidential election, stating that no opposition candidate, including former President Goodluck Jonathan, can prevent the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) from retaining power.
Namadi made the remarks after casting his vote during the APC presidential primary election held at his polling unit in Kafin Hausa Local Government Area of Jigawa State.
The governor reiterated his commitment to delivering more than one million votes for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the next general election, saying the target was realistic given the widespread support the APC enjoys across Jigawa State.
He noted that the large turnout witnessed during the primary election demonstrated the confidence party members and residents have in both President Tinubu and the APC-led administration.
According to Namadi, the peaceful and transparent conduct of the exercise also reflected the President’s respect for democratic values and internal party democracy.
The governor further stated that the outcome of the APC primary election signalled what to expect in the 2027 polls, predicting an overwhelming victory for the ruling party nationwide.
Namadi described Jigawa as one of the APC’s strongest support bases, pointing out that the state ranks among those with the highest number of registered voters in the country.
The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a 63-year-old Chinese woman for allegedly attempting to smuggle a large consignment of Canadian Loud, a synthetic strain of cannabis, into Nigeria.
The suspect, described as Ting Hung Kiong who naturalised in Malaysia, was arrested on Sunday, May 17, 2026, upon arrival at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, from Thailand via Dubai on an Emirates Airline flight.
This was contained in a statement made available to the column.ng on (today) Sunday by NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi.
According to the agency, NDLEA operatives attached to the Terminal 2 Arrival Hall intercepted her after she was found to have two large travel boxes containing 31.0 kilograms of the illicit substance.
“During an interview, the 63-year-old suspect who claims she works as a caregiver in Malaysia stated that her daughter sponsored her trip from Malaysia to Thailand and subsequently to Nigeria.
“She further disclosed that she spent two weeks in Thailand, before she was handed the illicit consignment at the Thailand airport to deliver in Nigeria,” the statement read.
Meanwhile, the NDLEA also announced the interception of another major drug shipment at the Lagos airport import shed.
“Following close monitoring of the consignment by NDLEA operatives since its arrival from India aboard an Emirates Cargo flight, the 29 large cartons containing One Million, Eight Hundred and Twenty-Five Thousand, Seven Hundred and Ten (1,825,710) tablets of Tapentadol 250mg, worth Two Billion, One Hundred and Ninety Million, Eight Hundred and Fifty-Two Thousand Naira (N2,190,852,000) were eventually handed over to the NDLEA by the Customs Service on Friday 22nd May 2026,” it said.
In another operation at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, NDLEA operatives on May 20 arrested a suspect, Onyeka Valentine Emeka, during inward clearance of passengers on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Sierra Leone via Addis Ababa.
The suspect, according to the agency, excreted 185.36 grams of cocaine while under observation.
Babafemi added that “at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, a 29-year-old building engineer, Babatunde Prosper Afekhide was on Wednesday 21st May arrested by NDLEA operatives while attempting to board an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Abuja via Addis Ababa to Milan Malpensa, Italy.
“A search conducted on his luggage led to the recovery of 10,280 pills of Tramaking 225mg; Tramadol 200mg and Tapentadol 250mg. The opioids were concealed using foil paper and hidden inside a carton, in a suitcase, obviously to evade detection.
“In yet another operation at a courier company in Lagos, NDLEA operatives intercepted 1,174 pills of MDMA (Ecstasy) concealed in bicycle luggage carrier heading to Netherlands; 66 pills of tramadol 225mg hidden in soap container going to the United States and 18 tablets of tramadol 225mg concealed in body cream container heading to the United Kingdom,” the agency said.
In Edo State, operatives acting on intelligence raided Igwe community in Owan East Local Government Area, where 59 jumbo bags of skunk weighing 489kg and 9kg of cannabis seeds were recovered.
The agency also said a 30-year-old suspect, Isah Sani, was arrested with 196,000 pills of Exol-5 along the Zaria–Kano road in Kano State on May 20, while operatives at the Seme border in Badagry, Lagos, recovered 59kg of skunk from a warehouse in Mowo on May 19.
In Ekiti State, NDLEA operatives on May 23 raided a warehouse in Ikole-Ekiti and recovered 1,116 kilograms of skunk, arresting a 54-year-old suspect, Ogundana Adebayo Julius, in connection with the seizure.
The agency also disclosed continued nationwide War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) sensitisation activities in schools, worship centres and communities across several states.
Chairman/Chief Executive Officer of NDLEA, Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (Rtd), commended officers involved in the operations and charged them to sustain the agency’s drug supply reduction and sensitisation efforts.
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