The All Progressives Congress has said the grievances and outburst of some of its leaders including one of its governors who lost out at the recent primaries is a result of their inability to accept their ‘losses’.
The party’s national publicity secretary, Lanre Issa-Onilu, during a session with journalists on Wednesday said “these persons were taking their losses at the polls very badly, and looking for who to blame”.
Following the controversial results of the ruling party’s primaries, there have been agitations and plans to remove the national chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, from office by aggrieved governors and officials.
The Governor of Ogun, Ibikunle Amosun, and that of Zamfara, Abdul-aziz Yari have openly expressed their dissatisfaction with the national leadership of the party. On Wednesday, Rotimi Akeredolu, governor of Ondo State, joined the fray when he said the APC primaries has exposed the incompetence of the party’s national chairman.
Mr Akeredolu said this in reaction to an allegation that three governors led by him were working against the party. So far the governors are however yet to make any definite move towards the removal of the chairman.
Another APC leader, Osita Okechukwu, who lost out in the Enugu senatorial primaries, has also called for Mr Oshiomhole’s exit. PREMIUM TIMES on Wednesday reported the APC’s response to Mr Okechukwu accusing him of being a bad loser.
Also on Wednesday, Mr Issa-Onilu spoke about the tense situation in Ogun, Zamfara, and Imo States and the reaction of their governors.
Ogun
On Ogun, he said Mr Amosun was angry because he failed to impose a candidate on the people, “in an undemocratic way which is unacceptable to the party”.
“If we speak to the merit of this case, the Ogun State governor –the whole world saw it, the visuals were everywhere where he gathered some aspirants, stakeholders and said clearly, there won’t be primaries and right there he pointed at whom the next governor would be. He pointed to another person, ‘this one, you are the next senator, House of Reps etc and himself the next senatorial candidate and he dished out these positions out there.
“In the case of Ogun, after that exercise failed, after they tried to handpick who will be what, they sent a letter that they had agreed on direct primary and the party had no choice but to endorse what you want.
“On the day they all came for screening, including the governor, suddenly they left other aspirants and returned to Abeokuta, gathered some people and sent back to the National Working Committee that they wanted indirect primary and the other aspirants said we were all here together, that they didn’t know when this change was made.”
Making reference to a subsisting court order which barred the Ogun State Executive Council of the APC from party activities, Mr Issa-Onilu said the governor and his allies defied the court order and “went ahead to carry out an illegal exercise which they wanted the NEC to validate”.
He said “the governor has done his best to get validation for this self-help. That is not possible. The first thing he did was to start saying things that made it look like something wrong has happened when nothing of such has happened.
“Secondly, he took certain monarchs, some traditional rulers from Ogun State to come and meet the president. I am surprised because someone like him, with due respect to him, should have understood the nature of the president we have, that no matter how close you are to him, he will listen to you but he will ask for the road to be followed.
“So, the problem he has is that, he was looking for whom to blame and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Aremo Segun Osoba readily came under attack and he blamed them for that.”
Zamfara, Imo
Speaking on Zamfara State he said: “We submitted list of candidates for legislative elections in Zamfara State. If INEC did not take it, it is a different thing. We have a right to submit and INEC has the legal responsibility to receive. INEC cannot disqualify candidates; we all know that. We have said clearly that whatever claims INEC is making is neither correct nor a true representation of what happened and we will continue to take progressive steps to ensure that INEC does what is right.”
INEC had insisted APC would not be allowed to field candidates in Zamfara as it could not hold its primaries. The primaries could not hold due to violence occasioned by the internal wrangling between the governor’s loyalists and those of other governorship candidates. Mr Issa-Onilu did not state which faction’s lists it sent especially after the APC headquarters had disparaged the governor for trying to hijack the process.
In the case of Imo where the state governor, Rochas Okorocha, wants his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, to succeed him, the party said it is yet to reach a decision. The spokesman said the deadline for the submission of governorship candidates is November 2 despite INEC saying October 18 was the deadline.
“The issue of submission of governorship candidates to INEC falls due on November 2nd, so we haven’t reached the stage of where we will submit names or beat the deadline. You are aware that there was a court action challenging the Imo governorship primary election. The position of the party is that whatever court judgement, good or bad, we must comply with it. We will only decide who will be APC’s governorship candidate for Imo State by November 2nd.”
PREMIUM TIMES
