Former Kwara State Commissioner for Works, Engr. Rotimi Illiasu, has explained that he went to court to challenge his replacement as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senatorial candidate for Kwara North because he won the ticket through a primary election and was not a placeholder.
Illiasu had reportedly emerged as the PDP candidate for the district before the party, months later, announced another aspirant, Kolo Jiya, as its candidate.
Jiya’s emergence followed an alliance between the PDP and aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State who were dissatisfied with the outcome of their party’s primary elections.
Speaking during an interview with members of the Kwara Correspondents’ Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Illiasu said he approached the court to seek justice after rejecting pressure to relinquish the ticket.
He explained that he refused to surrender the ticket because the process through which he emerged as the candidate was different from the arrangements that produced candidates in the other senatorial districts.
According to him, he contested and won the PDP primary election conducted in Kwara North, and his victory earned him the party’s ticket.
He said candidates who secured the tickets in the other two senatorial districts did not emerge through elections but through consensus arrangements, with the understanding that their tickets could subsequently be withdrawn.
Illiasu described the other candidates as placeholders, insisting that he won his ticket outright and could not be treated in the same manner.
He said that during a meeting with the PDP leader in the state, Bukola Saraki, over the dispute, Saraki expressed displeasure with his refusal to voluntarily relinquish the ticket, as the other candidates had reportedly done.
However, Illiasu said he maintained that he won the ticket through an election and could not voluntarily surrender the mandate given to him by PDP members in the district.
He added that Saraki insisted that the party’s decision to withdraw the ticket from him remained unchanged but told him he was free to approach the court if he wished to challenge it.
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Illiasu said he decided to challenge his replacement in court to demonstrate that justice could be obtained through the judicial system.
“I went to court for justice, I went to court for people to know that court justice could be secured. If I lose, so be it, but if I win, then Allah has decreed,” he stated.
The former commissioner also alleged that Moro Local Government Area had been marginalised in the distribution of National Assembly seats in Kwara North.
He said Moro was the only one among the five local government areas in the senatorial district that had never produced a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.
