Nigeria’s minister of interior, Rauf Aregbesola, and his supporters are claiming disenfranchisement at the gubernatorial primary elections of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun.

As incumbent Governor Gboyega Oyetola takes the lead in the party’s primary, Mr Aregbesola’s supporters who are staunch loyalists of another governorship candidate, Moshood Adeoti, are insinuating that the voting exercise was manipulated to favour Mr Oyetola.

They claimed Mr Oyetola removed their names from the party register in a calculated attempt to disenfranchise them from voting against him.

Many APC members were stranded across various wards such as Ede, Ilesa, Oyan, Odo-Otin local government, Osogbo and other parts of the state after they were unable to find their names on the party register, despite having their membership cards.

“This is shocking. We came here early in the morning, overjoyed and elated to be a part of the process of electing our governorship candidate. We had gathered in our ward as early as possible for the exercise,” Osun state’s APC publicity secretary, Abiodun Agboola, said.

“To our surprise, we did not find our names in the register they pasted. We have our membership cards with us and we duly registered last year.

“It is however a rude shock to us that our names are not here. This is a clear message that Governor Oyetola and his men do not want us to vote for the candidate of our choice.

“Our leaders have been alleging that our names might not be in the membership register. We have found out that is true. They do not want us (Adeoti’s supporters) to vote.

“This is sad and undemocratic. We are party men and we are being disenfranchised in our own party. This exercise is not free, fair and credible.”

Meanwhile, Mr Adeoti had on Friday alleged that the governor was plotting to retain his seat by all means necessary and was using his position at APC’s National Caretaker and Extraordinary National Convention Planning Committee to keep the party register at the government house.