Oyegun: Akande’s Comment on APC Presidential Ticket His Personal Opinion

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, has said the statement credited to his predecessor, Chief Bisi Akande, that the party’s presidential ticket for 2019 election was open to all was his personal view.

Although Oyegun who had declared in May that the party would give Buhari right of first refusal for the party’s presidential ticket in 2019 was unperturbed by Akande’s remark when responding to a question from THISDAY on telephone last night, that was not the situation with some South-west leaders of the party, who were taken aback by the development, as they maintained that the former national chairman of the party spoke outside the agenda and resolutions of the zonal leaders’ meeting.

Akande had at the end of a stakeholders meeting of South-west APC last Thursday, involving governors, National Assembly members, ministers and other party members, held at the Agodi Government House, Ibadan, Oyo State, declared that the presidential ticket of the party was open to all in the 2019 general election.

Responding to a question about the position of the party on Buhari’s speculated second term ambition, Akande had stated thus: “He has not told us he is running in 2019. Anybody in our party is free to become the president of Nigeria as long as he indicates interest. We have a process through which a candidate will be selected. If he is lucky to get the ticket, then we have no option than to present him as our candidate.”

THISDAY, October 15, 2017

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