A serial contender for Kogi West senate seat, Hon. Tolorunju Faniyi has obtained Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nomination form for House of Representatives primaries.
This is coming on the heels of rumoured plan by the party leadership to offer returnee Senator Dino Melaye an automatic ticket to seek re-election in 2019.
Faniyi, we gathered, jettisoned his age-long senate ambition because of the position of the national working committee of PDP who are bent on honouring the MoU entered into with rAPC. The MoU guarantees automatic return tickets for Senator Melaye and other decampees.
His decision, however, did not go down well with electorate in his Yagba East local government. His kinsmen wondered why Faniyi chickened out of the senate race few weeks after his co-aspirant from Yagba East, Barr. Henry Ojuola was made to step down for him.
PDP elders and delegates from the four wards in Isanlu met at the residence of Chief Frank Aiyedun on August 13 and adopted Faniyi as Isanlu consensus candidate for the forthcoming Kogi West PDP primaries. They appealed to Ojuola to conform with the arrangement and support Faniyi to emerge as PDP flag-bearer for the 2019 Kogi West senatorial election.
The meeting was convened to streamline the number of PDP senatorial aspirants from Isanlu in order not to jeopardize their chance of picking the coveted ticket.
27 PDP delegates from the four wards in Isanlu were requested to vote for their preferred aspirant. Faniyi emerged consensus candidate after polling 26 votes.
Faniyi won election into the House of Representatives in 2003. He vied for Kogi West senate ticket under PDP in 2007 and lost to Senator Smart Adeyemi. In 2011, he lost at the PDP primaries before picking CPC ticket. He lost the general election to Adeyemi, again. Smart Adeyemi completed a ‘political hat-trick’ against Faniyi in 2015.
With Faniyi out of the race, the fate of Yagba Federal constituency now rests on Asiwaju Clarence Olafemi, Hon. Ganiyu Salaudeen Erukutu and Hon. Sunday Karimi.
