The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun on Tuesday elected two Governorship candidates at the party’s parallel primaries for the July 16 governorship election in the state.

At the primaries held at the Osogbo City Stadium, under the supervision of Deputy Governor of Bayelsa, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, Ademola Adeleke was declared the winner.

While declaring Mr Adeleke as the winner, Mr Ewhrudjakpo said the politician scored 1, 887 votes. His closest rival, Sanya Omirin, scored four votes.

The primary was supervised by the party’s representatives from Abuja, as well as officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

At another primary held at the Women and Children Development Initiative Foundation (WOCDIF), Osogbo, there were no party representatives from Abuja and INEC representatives were absent. Dotun Babayemi was declared the winner.

Mr Ewhrudjakpo said that other aspirants like Dele Adeleke scored one vote; while Fatai Akinbade, Dotun Babayemi and Akin Ogunbiyi recorded zero.

He said 1916 votes were recorded; while 24 votes were invalid.

“By the power conferred on me as the Chief Returning Officer of this gubernatorial primary, we, hereby, collectively declare Adeleke Ademola Jackson as the winner of this gubernatorial primary for 2022 governorship election in Osun,” he said.

Mr Ewhrudjakpo urged all other aspirants to join hands with the winner to enable the party to win the July 16 governorship election in the state.

He also urged Mr Adeleke to be magnanimous in victory.

Mr Ewhrudjakpo said that there was no parallel congress in the state.

According to him, any other congress, apart from the one I supervised will not be recognised by the national headquarters of the party.

“The king is here and the crown is here. This is the authentic congress and any other one conducted in any other place will not be recognised,” he said.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Adeleke said that there was no victor, no vanquished in the primary election.

According to him, we are all winners. Let’s work together to rescue people of the state from the All Progressives Congress-led government.

“By God’s grace, PDP will win July 16 Governorship election by a landslide to claim our stolen mandate. Our manifesto will be released in a few days’ time,” he said.

At the WOCDIF Centre, Adelani Ajanaku, the returning officer, said Mr Babayemi scored 1,781 votes; while his closest rival, Mr Adeleke scored 32 votes.

Mr Ajanaku said that Mr Akinbade scored 28 votes; Mr Ogunbiyi, 23 votes; and Mr Omirin polled 16 votes.

He said that 1,907 votes were recorded and 27 of them voided.

(NAN)