Ondo APC Primary: Akeredolu made
good his threat to shock Tinubu –
Abraham
Dayo Johnson, Akure
RATHER than abate, the crisis in the
opposition All Progressives Congress,
APC, in Ondo State over the choice of
its candidate ahead of the November 26
governorship election in the state has
deepened two months to the poll. One
of the key players and the first runner
up in the election, Dr Olusegun
Abraham, in this interview, bares his
mind on the crisis and how alleged
injustice and corruption came into play
in the choice of the party’s candidate.
You keep insisting that you want to
retrieve your mandate. How is this still
possible going by the reality on ground
now?
The mandate is the mandate of the good
people of Ondo State, given to me by the
delegates; so it is the mandate of these
people that I want to claim. I have said
it severally that we have some steps that
we need to explore to restore this
mandate and we have only explored one
step and we are disappointed with the
outcome, so we are moving to the two
other steps in order to claim the
mandate.
Fortunately, the issue is now a public
matter and the whole world has seen
that injustice was committed by some
people in the APC at the national level.
This is a big mistake on the part of
those who injected names of non-
delegates and non-party members into
our voting list.
We want to know who injected those
names, and on whose authority the
names were injected? Are they superior
to the congress of the party and the
election panel?
We want to know what the National
Chairman of the party, John Oyegun,
and other leaders around him have done
if they are not the ones who put the
names on the list illegally. Has he
informed the EFCC to investigate the
matter because this is a criminal
offence? If President Buhari’s
government truly represents change, and
fighting corruption, this electoral fraud
must be properly investigated and the
culprits punished. Otherwise, I don’t
think this government has any right or
moral justification to arrest anybody for
fraud .
This is one of the reasons I said I’m not
going to leave the party, we will be here
in order to salvage the party. I support
the Buhari government in fighting
corruption and I’m sure this menace will
be brought down to minimal level if not
eradicated in our land and, therefore, if
there are elements, either in
government or party, trying to
encourage corruption, this should be
part of the things we must fight and
correct.
Are you not fantasizing about you
supposed “stolen mandate”? How do you
think this is possible after the party has
submitted the name of Akeredolu as its
candidate?
I am not fantasizing. Those who did not
support the candidature of Akeredolu
are more than those who supported him.
It is high time to fight this (alleged)
corruption.
That somebody single-handedly dropped
his name at INEC against the decision of
NWC, this is another illegality. I am
surprised to still find Oyegun at the
helm of affairs of the APC because, in
a civilized society, this man ought to
have resigned, he has no business being
the Chairman anymore.
The alleged fraud that was perpetrated
in Ondo was said to have been
perfected by the national body. A
candidate that was not popular was
picked above favorite aspirants in the
election. I was sure of over 800 delegates
before the election but they went ahead
by disenfranchising my delegates by
removing their names and replacing
them with non-delegates.
This is even a bigger offence than
people stealing billions of Naira, stealing
somebody mandate through fraudulent
means and giving their votes to an
unqualified aspirant. These are the
issues we need to correct and one of the
reasons we are in this mess today in
Nigeria is because the PDP believed in
rigging from the primary to the general
elections, but we want to put a stop to
this during Buhari’s administration,
especially as Mr. President is known to
be an honest man, a man of integrity
who is determined to flush out
corruption in this country.
The NWC members seem to have shut
the door against your aspiration by
saying there is no going back on
Akeredolu…
The NWC are not the people of Ondo.
Though they are the organs of the party,
and the organs must listen to what the
people are saying. This is not a military
regime but a democratic administration;
they must learn how to be democratic.
In specific terms, are you asking EFCC to
investigate this particular matter?
Yes. I thought the perpetrators of the
alleged fraud should have been arrested
by now. I thought Oyegun and his
group, if they knew nothing about the
padded delegates list in Ondo, should
fish out those behind the padding. It is
an embarrassment to Buhari’s
government and to a party that is
known for fighting corruption and we
now found out this fraud within the
same party, this is a disgrace.
Talking about you still having two
options after exploring one, what are the
two other options?
The two options are still within the party
machinery but I don’t want to pre-empt
the results of these options. When we
get to that stage, the whole world will
know.
On this vexed issue of fake delegates
injected into the list, how are we sure
that you are not even a beneficiary?
He who pays the piper dictates the tune.
Those who put them there had an
arrangement with them because they
had predetermined the result. They’ve
been discovered. I am so confident that
anytime there’s a rerun, I will win.
That’s one of the reasons they are afraid
to go back to the field. If these
perpetrators had been arrested by EFCC,
we would have known the truth.
It was alleged that some people in the
Presidency are behind the padding of
the delegates list to favour a particular
aspirant. What’s your take on this?
We can’t rule it out but what I know is
that Mr. President will not have a hand
in that fraud. But I believe they cannot
perpetrate this fraud without the
connivance of some people at the party
secretariat. That’s why they took our
delegates list and injected it with their
own delegates. I am even surprised that
the legal adviser did not tell them the
implication of what they have done?
Do you see any nexus in the statement
credited to Akeredolu before the election
that the result of the election will shock
Tinubu and the development thereafter?
The result of the election confirmed this.
God has a way of exposing some things
ahead of time. Has he not shocked the
whole world and not only Tinubu with
the result?
Are you in the face of the alleged
injustice and corruption asking for the
resignation of the NWC members?
Well, that should be determined by the
leaders of the party, but, for me and my
people, my mandate should be returned.
Again, those who perpetrated the
alleged fraud by bringing in fake
delegate list must be prosecuted so that
it will serve as deterrent to others.
If eventually the leadership of the party
prevailed on you to let go, would you be
ready to support Akeredolu?
I will only ask them to prevail on the
people of the state because what has
taken place is a slap on the people of
the state. So, I stand by them and I stand
with them and prevailing on me is
immaterial. Anyway I want the fraud in
the Ondo APC primary investigated.
Are you saying Akeredolu candidacy
will not fly going by the manner of his
emergence?
Members of the party in the state have
started dumping the party for PDP ,
that’s an indication that the candidate
picked by the party is not popular and
not acceptable to majority of the APC
members in the state. Some people have
joined the Action Alliance too, we don’t
need crystal ball to know that, with him
as the APC candidate, the party is
finished in the state. If we are lucky in
the governorship election in the state,
we will be number five unless the party
reverses its decision.
From Ondo APC Primary: Akeredolu
made good his threat to shock Tinubu –
Abraham by Vanguard (News)

www.nigerianow.news/ondo-apc-primary-akeredolu-made-good-his-threat-to-shock-tinubu-abraham/

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