Ex-Senator Arise rejects Fasuyi’s victory over alleged result manipulation

By Boye Oyeyemi

A former senator and aspirant in the 2026 All Progressives Congress senatorial primary in Ekiti North Senatorial District, Senator Ayo Arise, has rejected the emergence of Senator Cyril Fasuyi as the party’s candidate, alleging widespread irregularities in the exercise.

Addressing journalists in Oye-Ekiti on Tuesday, Arise claimed the results announced by the party’s committee did not reflect the actual outcome recorded across the wards.

“I won the APC Ekiti North Senatorial Primary yesterday. That is the fact on which everything I say today rests,” he stated.

The former lawmaker alleged that results collated from 33 wards showed he scored 8,687 votes against Fasuyi’s 7,755 votes, contrary to the official figures declared by the committee.

“The ward results gave me 8,687 votes, but the declaration reduced it to 4,868. Thousands of votes were removed from my total,” he alleged.

Arise further claimed that officials abandoned the process in some wards where he was leading, while voting reportedly did not take place in several others across the district.

“That is a 157 percent turnout. It is impossible and does not reflect what happened during the election,” he said while questioning the total votes announced by the committee.

He therefore called on the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress to review the exercise, insisting that the declared result was fabricated and could not stand based on the figures from the wards.