APC NWC defends Oyegun over cancellation of Ondo guber primary

Confusing reports has continued to trail what really led the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership, to reject its election panel report to cancel Ondo State primary election.

This is as the party’s national Vice-Chairman (South-South), Hilliard Eta, a member of APC’s National Working Committee (NWC) on Wednesday in Abuja, said it was NWC itself that rejected the panel report to cancel the result and not the party’s national chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; the National Secretary, Mai Buni’ and the National Organising Secretary, Osita Izunaso as claimed by his South-West counterpart, Pius Akinyelure.

Akinyelure had alleged that Odigie-Oyegun, Mai Buni’ and Izunaso, were the brains behind the alleged rigging of the primary election and subsequent submission of Chief Rotimi Akeredolu’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite NWC acceptance of the panel report to cancel the election.

But according to Eta, Akinyelure’s claim was false and an attempt to please an unnamed benefactor. He said the claim that members overwhelmingly voted in favour of the adoption of the appeal committee report was totally untrue.

“We have read various newspaper reports but I can tell you that no vote was taken (on the issue of submission of Akeredolu’s name). Before we met on the last day for the submission of name to INEC, we had met three times earlier. In that meeting, there were two reports before the NWC.

Read also: ONDO: APC chieftain reveals how Oyegun, others schemed Akeredolu in

“That very day, we were 14 in number, not 11 as we have it in the media. Thirteen of us voted for the appeal committee report to be thrown out; only one person voted for us to retain the report and that person was the National Vice-Chairman, North-Central, Alhaji Zakari Indeh. Pius Akinyelure voted that the report should be thrown out.

‘‘After that, we mandated our National Chairman and Secretary to go out and do wider consultations so that we can have a political solution to the heated environment the situation has caused the party. When they returned, they told us of their efforts to reach many people for a political solution but it was very clear to us that we were not going to have political solutions.

“We had to go through the procedure as we have it in our constitution, which is that when you send a team to conduct an election and there is a petition on their report, it is the NWC, as the appellant institution, that has the power to consider the merits of the election committee report and that of the appeal committee report.

“If the appeal committee’s report is thrown out, the only report that is left is the election committee report,” Etta said.

 

 

 

 

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