APC in crisis as elders choose Amosun as Senate consensus candidate

\Ogun Gpv. Ibikunle Amosun has emerged the candidate for Ogun Central senate race following the unveiling by ‘elders’ of the All Progressives Congress of consensus candidates for the National Assembly.

Other contenders for the party’s slots for those federal legislative slots have thus been closed.

Mr. Amosun was the holder of the Ogun Central senate seat between 2003 and 2007, but this time around, he will be displacing the incumbent, Lanre Tejuoso.

The announcement was made at the Presidential Lodge in Abeokuta on Tuesday. Six of the nine candidates for the House of Representatives were also announced.

Apart from Mr. Amosun, other adopted candidates for the Senate are Lekan Mustapha (Ogun -East) and the Chief of Staff to the state governor, Tolu Odebiyi (Ogun- West). Mr. Mustapha was also the holder of the seat between 2007 and 2011, as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party.

The six adopted candidates for House of Representatives seats include the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Suraj Adekunbi (Egbado North/Ipokia); former chairman of Ado-Odo/Ota, Rotimi Rahman(Ota); the State Commissioner for Special Duties, Leke Adewolu(Ewekoro/Ifo).

Others are the Director General of Bureau of Lands, Biyi Ismail (Ijebu North/Ijebu North-East/Ogun -waterside); Biyi Otegbeye (Egbado South /Ipokia) and Mikail Kazeem ( Abeokuta North/Obafemi-Owode/ Odeda).

The announcements which followed the House of Assembly candidates adopted Monday, were met with mixed reactions by members of the party.

While some members hailed the governor and jubilated over the choice of their preferred candidates, others who expressed anger considered some choices as unpopular and described them as “imposition”.

The governor described the reactions as ” the beauty of democracy” and told aggrieved members to wait till the time of primaries when the party would finalise all issues.

The party had on Sept. 5, at a stakeholders meeting adopted consensus arrangement for selecting its candidates for the 2019 polls with a provision to resort to direct primaries should the consensus arrangement fail.

Mr. Amosun last week presented House of Representative member, Abdulkabir Akinlade, to party members in Abeokuta as the consensus governorship candidate of the party, as well as Peju Adebajo as his running mate

Mr. Amosun had explained that Mr. Akinlade had emerged among other nine aspirants from the Ogun-West Senatorial District to which the party had zoned the governorship seat.

However, elders of the party from the Ogun -East Senatorial District dissociated themselves from the purported zoning arrangement to Ogun-West Senatorial District and had since unveiled the state Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Bimbo Ashiru, as the consensus candidate from the area.

Dapo Abiodun, a governorship aspirant from Ogun East has also kicked against the arrangement.

The bloc is claiming the right to produce the successor to Mr. Amosun based on the principle of power rotation in the state.