Politics

APC Chairmanship: Oshiomhole’s candidature suffers setback

Published

7 years ago

April 24, 2018

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The bid of former governor of Edo state, Adams Oshiomhole for the chairmanship position of the All Progressives Congress (APC) next month suffered a setback on Monday as four out of the six states in the South-south have denied endorsing his candidature.

The state chairmen, Davies Ikanya, Rivers; Joseph Fafi, Bayelsa; Etim John, Cross River; Amadu Attai, Akwa ibom said John Oyegun, the embattled national chairman of the party reserved the right to seek reelection.

They had stormed out of the south-south zonal caucus meeting held at the Edo state government house on Monday in protest of what they said were plans by Godwin Obaseki, governor of the state, and Hilliard Eta, zonal vice-chairman of the APC, to adopt Oshiomhole as the consensus chairmanship candidate of the region.

“We were here for a meeting only to be ambushed by the national vice chairman of the party to adopt a preconceived candidate. First, I want us to know that the zonal executive committee does not have the power to elect, nominate or to adopt candidates for national offices,” Ikanya said.

According to Ikanya, many senior members of the party in the zone were shut out of the meeting. “ In this zone where we have a sitting chairman and he is not invited to a meeting, you have six ministers, you have former governors, you have very senior citizens of this zone and they were shut out of the meeting only for the national vice chairman to ambush everybody, ignore every motion that was moved, even when somebody moved a motion that he should disqualify himself having shown bias from the beginning in this meeting, he still sat there and he is saying to the public that there was a resolution.”

“We want you to know that out of the states of the zone, four states are saying that this was an ambush, it was not acceptable, and there was no resolution. We have said that every person is free to run in the election. We stand by the resolution of the national executive committee (NEC) that there is waiver.

Also reacting, Joseph Fafi from Bayelsa state he said he aligned with his three other colleagues, “It is undemocratic, unexpected and a complete fraud and we dissociate ourselves from what has happened here and we believe that the election should be open to any interested candidate from the South South and the people will decide who to vote for and not the decision of Edo state.”

The National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party had extended the tenure of the National Working Committee (NWC) led by Oyegun by a year but some leaders of the party kicked against it and even headed to the court.

President Muhammadu Buhari who was also in support of the tenure extension later opposed it, insisting on another convention.

The convention is slated for next month.