The controversy over the governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Ogun and Imo States continued, yesterday, as Governor Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun) and Mr Uche Nwosu, an in-law of Governor Rochas Okorocha (Imo), attacked the National Chairman of the ruling party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
Nwosu vowed to recover his ‘mandate’.
“My mandate is still intact”, Nwosu said, citing a court order in his favour, stopping the APC from submitting the name of any person other than his, as the governorship candidate of the party for the 2019 election in Imo State, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The APC leadership had, on Friday, submitted the name of Senator Hope Uzodimma to the electoral body as the party’s governorship candidate for the 2019 election in Imo, while also submitting the name of Prince Dapo Abiodun as the candidate for Ogun State as against Hon Adekunle Akinlade supported by Governor Amosun.
Same day, Oshiomhole attacked the Ogun governor, likening him to an emperor who wanted to manipulate the party primaries to his advantage.
The party Chairman also carpeted the Imo governor for allegedly trying to create a dynasty, saying it was an effort in futility.
Meanwhile, it also emerged, yesterday, that the APC leadership may have annulled the result of the primary election for the House of Assembly in Ogun as the 26 winners of the exercise did not receive the mandatory forms they should have filled ahead of the deadline for the submission on Friday.
Also, yesterday, Akinlade said his governorship ambition was on course.
Oshiomhole, collaborators will fail – Amosun
In a statement, Amosun, reacting to the position of Oshiomhole that he was an emperor, said “the design of the APC National Chairman and his collaborators to hijack the government of Ogun State and hand it over to a gang of rapacious expansionists in the South-West will fail.”
The statement, signed by Ogun State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Adedayo Adeneye, restated the contention of the APC leadership in the state that the only governorship primary held in Ogun was that of October 2, which produced Akinlade as winner.
According to him, the emergence of Akinlade was initially through a consensus arrangement as allowed by the party constitution but was nevertheless subjected to a primary election when some gubernatorial aspirants disagreed with the outcome of the consensus arrangement. “This is, however, without prejudice to the sanctity of the consensus arrangement which Adams Oshiomhole hypocritically tries to demonise. Nigerians will recall that Oshiomhole himself was elected National Chairman of the APC by consensus arrangement which witnessed all other contestants to the office being prevailed upon to step down for him (Oshiomhole)”, the governor said.
He continued: “The ground on which Oshiomhole disputes the governorship primary in Ogun State is that the result was not announced by the State Electoral Committee from Abuja, therefore the governor resorted to self-help. We wonder why Oshiomhole accepted the result of the primary election in Lagos State whose result was also not announced by the State Electoral Panel. Why will the same scenario be acceptable in Lagos State but regarded as self-help in Ogun State? Is it because it was executed by the Capo Di Tutti in Lagos State?
“We wish to call the attention of Nigerians to another evil being perpetrated by Oshiomhole in Ogun State. As at today November 03, which is 24 hours after the deadline for submission of names of candidates for the House of Assembly, Oshiomhole has not given INEC Party Candidate Form (CF001) to any of the 26 candidates who won the primaries for the ticket to contest for the Ogun State House of Assembly. The primary was conducted on October 07 by the State Electoral Committee headed by Col. Ali Ciroma.
This is despite the fact that the State Chairman of the party had kept vigil at the national secretariat of the APC in the last two weeks to collect the forms. If Oshiomhole is denying the outcome of the gubernatorial primaries because the State Electoral Committee shied away from announcing the result, what is the reason for denying all the 26 candidates for the House of Assembly freely elected by members of the APC in Ogun State? We want Nigerians to note the duplicity and meddlesomeness of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his gang in the affairs of the APC in Ogun State.
“It is also important to note that Oshiomhole unilaterally replaced four of the nine winners of the primary election into the House of Representatives. This includes Hon. Mikhail Kazzim, a serving member of the House who won the primaries by defeating Olumide, the son of Chief Olusegun Osoba, with 28,802 votes to Osoba’s 4,209. Oshiomhole removed Hon. Kazzim who won the primaries and replaced him with the man he had serially defeated, not only in the last primary election but also in the general election of 2015. In yet another instance in Ado Odo-Ota Federal Constituency, Oshiomhole substituted the winner of the primary for the House of Representatives, Hon. Rotimi Rahmon with the name of Hon. Jimoh Ojugbele, who did not even contest to go back to the House of Representatives but contested the primary for the Senate and was defeated.
“In his conduct, Oshiomhole is opening a new chapter in the history of elections in Nigeria, a situation where a gang of desperate politicians will sit somewhere in another state and write the result of an election that never took place; what our people creatively refer to as `Offshore Rigging!’. This is what Oshiomhole and his gang are trying to foist on Ogun State. Lawyers say `you cannot build something on nothing’. Oshiomhole and his gang are trying to build a storey building of fraud on nothing”.
The governor dismissed the claim of Oshiomole that he withdrew the security of the State Electoral Committee. “As regards the claim of Oshiomhole that Sen. Amosun withdrew the security of the panel, Indabawa, Chairman of the panel, is a retired Commissioner of Police. He came into Ogun State with a full complement of police team which he claimed was provided for him by a Deputy Inspector General of Police. How could Amosun have withdrawn policemen he did not assign or over whom he had no control”, Amosun said.
“All of these have clearly shown that the motive of Oshiomhole is not the rule of law which he proclaims on the roof top. It is rather, an evil plan with some collaborators, desperate to hijack the government of Ogun State and add it to the harem of states under their rapacious gang of exploiters.
“As we have stated before, this evil design will not succeed in Ogun State. Our people are too educated, exposed and sophisticated to come under such odious arrangement. On a general note, Oshiomhole, who became the APC Chairman barely three months ago, is already threatening to write the epitaph of the party in his 100 days of ignominy”.
He added: “Be assured that the music has just begun and we hope that you will enjoy the macabre dance to the music of justice.
“By the grace of God and the support of the good people of Ogun State, Hon. Adekunle Abdulkadir Akinlade will be sworn in as the new governor of Ogun State on May 29, 2019”.
Oshiomhole can’t stop my mandate —Nwosu
Replying Oshiomhole from Owerri, Imo State capital, yesterday, Nwosu, Okorocha’s in-law, said the APC National Chairman could not stop his 2019 governorship candidature for APC in the state.
He said he was shocked that Oshiomole had disregarded a court order stopping APC and INEC from submitting or accepting any name other than him, adding that he would defeat Oshiomhole lawfully.
“My mandate is still intact, I remain the candidate of the APC. I am very much shocked with the National Chairman who is speaking from both sides of his mouth”, he stated.
“I am shocked that a man who has attained that age and who we should look up to as our role model has become somebody who many of us can no longer see as a role model.
“I am shocked at the attitude of the National Chairman which does not give hope to young people that most of us look up to for years.
“I will not leave APC. I still remain the authentic candidate of that party. I still have a valid court order restraining the party from submitting any other name and also restraining INEC from accepting any name other than mine and the matter is in court.
“So if they go anywhere and got another court order without knowing that there is a subsisting court order, that must have been done in error. “My candidacy is secure and cannot be truncated by the National Chairman or any other person. “I will never abandon the mandate given to me by party members to be their governorship candidate for the 2019 election”.
APC moves to placate aggrieved members
In a related development, Sunday Vanguard learnt, last night, that APC had concluded arrangements to set up a team of eminent party members to placate aggrieved stakeholders within its fold.
The team, according to party sources, will work to assuage the feelings of many influential party stakeholders who lost out in the just concluded primary elections, mainly from Ogun, Imo and Zamfara States…
