By Yinusa Abayomi

Only a free and fair election in the primary of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) can guarantee victory for the party in the Ondo State gubernatorial election slated for the end of this year, the Oodua Nationalist Coalition, (ONAC) has said.

In a statement made available to Irohinoodua on Tuesday, the Pan Yoruba group said the APC leaders should be very careful not to impose any candidate on the APC in order to avoid another political waterloo for the party.

“Ondo and Ekiti are a unique Yoruba communities. They are poor but have a lot of pride. Once they suspect any attempt to undermine them, they will react in extreme measures. There is a growing feeling that the APC primary will be rigged for a particular candidate favoured by the top echelon of the APC in Lagos. This will automatically lead to the defection of many of the 23 candidates vying for the position of the governor or at best they will work to undermine the success of the party. This will spell doom and strengthen the ruling party irrespective of the woeful performance of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in Ondo state,”ONAC said in a statement issued this morning and signed by the group’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr Oriola Ayeni. The group said the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu should be commended for all his efforts at promoting democracy adding that he should once again demonstrate his keen intellect and sense of fairness in the coming APC primary in Ondo State. The statement was made available to Irohinoodua this afternoon.

ONAC said many Pan Yoruba groups are anxious to work for the exit of the PDP in every inch of Yoruba land but that the assistance of the APC leadership is needed through fair and free primaries, the surest way to open the floodgate to APC victory.

The group stated further “The APC leaders should remember the history of Ekiti and Ondo States. Imposition of candidates is responsible for the sustenance of opposition figures in the two states till date. The primary of the then Action Congress, (AC) in 2006 led to the defection of 13 gubernatorial candidates, one of them, Chief Segun Oni eventually won the controversial election under another platform, the PDP. It took the ACN more than three years to retrieve the mandate and at the end, the party did not get out of the feud till date. Ondo has the same history. The imposition of Chief Olu Akeredolu led to the defeat of the ACN in the elections of 2012. History should not be allowed to repeat itself again”, ONAC stated.

The group urged Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu to work for the emergence of a credible candidate through a free and fair APC primary instead of working to impose Mr Segun Abraham.



“The hallmark of leadership does not mean that the leader should not have a preferred candidate, but when the electorates suspect conscious attempts to impose the preferred candidate of the leader, there is bound to be resistance that will be damaging to the entire norms of democracy and the possibility of victory for the party.”

ONAC said that the PDP has performed extremely low in the past years of ruling in Ondo state, but that is not enough to say that the party will lose the forthcoming election. ONAC said mr Abraham has been bragging that he would win the primary because of the support he enjoys from Lagos, meaning that he is less interested in imagining the catastrophic implications of the fallout.



“The starting point is to ensure free and fair primary. The Ondo people are temperamental. They will react negatively to imposition of any candidate most especially by external forces. We urge the party leaders to allow a tested candidate who has been working for the past 10 years to rule the state with his extensive networking strategy to lead the party at the poll.”



The group said that Ondo State is too strategic to the Yoruba nation to be gambled with. “Since the May 2015 hand over, the APC has not been consistent in winning elections conducted in the post presidential elections era.

At the moment, the APC reputation is stagnant due to the economic meltdown. Any attempt to rig the Ondo primary will only compound the woes of the APC and the potential of the party winning the gubernatorial election will continue to thin out.”