By ‘Wole Adedeji, Ilorin
Former Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Professor Shuaib Oba AbdulRahman, who challenged the gubernatorial primary election of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, in Kwara State, has lost out in a rerun of the exercise.
Based on his petition to the national body of the party after the first primary, a repeat exercise was ordered and sheduled for and was held on Monday, 30th May, 2022, and conducted by a five-man team from Abuja.
At the end of the rerun, Professor AbdulRaheem only polled 177 votes against the 606 votes of Mallam Akeem Lawal.
A total of 792 delegates were accredited with 791 votes cast. Valid votes were 782 and nine votes were invalidated.
An earlier primary election was held last week with the same Lawal winning the former Vice Chancellor by a wide margin as well as four other aspirants.
However, three other aspirants, Arch Kale Belgore, Engineer Sunday Adebayo and Mallam Tajudeen Audu, opted out of the rerun primary, while Alhaji Khaleel Bolaji participated.
The stormy former Vice Chancellor of University of Ilorin also participated in the run-up to the governorship race of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2019, when he lost to the now incumbent Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq. He also at the time protested against the result of the primaries, which made him one of strongest opponents of the governor ever since.
Sources said that after the exercise in the SDP last week, some elders of the party prevailed on the former university don not to make any issues out of it this time around, but he alllegedly declined. Also, he was said to have locked out Lawal when at the instance of the elders, he went to the Professor to make peace.
The primary election was conducted by a national committee comprising of Barrister George Agbaminoje as Chairman, Dr. Godwin Malsbowe as Secereatry and Nelson Ekujumi, Tunde Babalola and Funsho Fabiyi as members.
