The businessman, who had last month picked the N10 million party’s expression of interest and nomination forms, defeated a former House of Representatives member, Dr. Usman Bugaje, Patience Key as well as Col. Mosugu Erosimi (rtd) to emerge victorious.
Abiola polled 1,970 votes in total to come tops during the primaries, while Bugaje garnered 787 votes, and Key, as well as Erosimi, had 333 and 280 votes respectively. Ten of the delegates’ votes were declared invalid.
He had earlier said that he believed in internal party democracy, noting that a transparent party primary was preferable to any consensus arrangement.
“Whoever wins, we will all come together and work for the party and not somebody calling for consensus where someone will step down for another.
“Let’s go and have a competitive environment, it will be transparent and we will uphold internal democracy and be able to have proper democracy,” he had insisted.
The total votes were arrived at after delegates from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) cast their ballot, with Abiola winning in about 27 of the states.
