APC aspirants in Ondo kick and reject elders’ consensus arrangement

Some governorship aspirants of the All Progressives Congress in Ondo State have repudiated an alleged plan by a group of elders in the party to pick a consensus candidate ahead of the forthcoming governorship election in the state scheduled for November 26, 2016.
It was accumulated that the elders, under the auspices of Akoko Elders Assembly, were making an arrangement for all the APC governorship aspirants to engender a consensus candidate in Akoko in order to enable an Akoko indigene win the party’s primary. In a verbal expression jointly signed on Monday by some of the aspirants, who include Senator Ajayi Boroffice, Mr. Victor Olabimtan, Dr. Tunji Abayomi and Mr. Gani Dauda, the aspirants described the orchestration as unconstitutional.

The elders were verbally expressed to have met on April 29, 2016 at the residence of one of the party’s statesmen, Pa Felix Aiyegbusi, where they (elders) gave an ultimatum to all the APC governorship aspirants from Akokoland to present a consensus candidate. It was amassed that the elders admonished that they would impose a candidate on the aspirants if they failed to come up with a consensus candidate. However, the aspirants verbalized in the verbal expression that section 20 of the APC Constitution empowered only the National Executive Committee of the party to provide the guidelines for the conduct of congresses at a congruous time. The verbal expression read in part, “We withal need to state affirmatively that we will not recognise or accept the decision taken at the Baba Felix Aiyegbusi’s residence as binding on us (because) the meeting has the potential to cause earnest and perilous disunity in Akoko. “It is terribly subjective, considering the fact that many of the soi-disant elders at that meeting are already in the campaign team of at least one candidate. In fact, they go from one location to another with a particular candidate.”

The aspirants verbally expressed the constitution of the APC only recognised two ways through which candidates could emerge, stressing that it was either by internal party election duly held through a germane congress or primary or by a consensus among aspirants. The aspirants verbalized the method through which the elders wanted to pick a candidate was unconstitutional, stressing that they would disregard the outcome of the meeting.