Group commends APC over Osun primary

A group of observer, Coalition of Civil Societies , which monitored the direct governorship primary election of Osun All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday, has commended the exercise.

In a news conference on Saturday in Osogbo, the leader of the group, Mr Wale Adebisi, said that the direct primary reduced manipulation and inducement of voters with money, observing that it would strengthen internal democracy.

“From all variables and indices available to us on the field, the direct primary is actually the best so as to encourage internal, all inclusive democracy, because every party member is involved.

“It eliminates the emerging trend where aspirants camped delegates and bribe each with huge amount of money. It also eliminates manipulation to a large extent.

“We hereby encourage every other political party to embrace this process of direct party primary so as to improve the internal democracy of the party politics which will gradually reduce the issue of financial inducement.

“Direct primary election process truly attests to the fact that democracy is truly for the people.

“Irrespective of all shortcomings and drawbacks observed during the exercise, the process is still the best because it is transparent, free and fair,’’ he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that direct method was used in conducting APC primary in all the 332 wards across the state.

A direct primary is a process whereby all card carrying members participate in the process of choosing the flag bearer of the party.

This is different from normal process where only selected party delegates will participate on the process.