Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has submitted the name of Chief Rotimi Akeredolu to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as its candidate for the Ondo State All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship election.
The party’s national leadership finally resolved to go ahead with Akeredolu’s candidacy despite the dust raised by his victory at the primary election.
With the submission of it’s candidate’s name to INEC, APC has laid to rest the intrigues and horse- trading over a possible cancelation of the governorship primary.
The party had remained undecided for days since the Appeal Committee submitted its report to the national secretariat on Monday on how to deal with situation.
But a source at the party secretariat said the party later resolved to go with Akeredolu, hence the National Secretary led other officers to submit the governorship candidate’s name at INEC at about 4p.m. yesterday.
A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, (NBA) Chief Rotimi Akeredolu, had emerged winner of the contest but his victory was challenged by not less than four other aspirants who petitioned the appeal committee.
Also, some highly influential figures in the party opposed Akeredolu’s emergence, insisting that it was a wrong choice considering what they described as the political equation of the state.
THISDAY gathered that apart from the constitutional limitations where the party has crossed the deadline of September 19 set by the INEC for party primary, the party risks attracting negative image to itself for dancing to the tune of a powerful leader from the zone if it cancels the primary.
It was learnt yesterday that the party is in a panicky mode and has rushed to the presidency to seek it’s position concerning the report of the appeal committee of Ondo primary election.
For four consecutive days, the Oyegun-led APC National Working Committee (NWC) has been meeting over the issue but is yet to come up with a decisive position on the matter.
It was reliably gathered that the appeal committee was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the delegates’ list used at the primary election was distorted.
A senior member of the party who does not want his name mentioned told journalists at the APC national secretariat that the problem became more complicated because some of the NWC were also doing the bidding of some prominent leaders of the party.
Though the NWC has refused to make its report public by either approving or disapproving of the Election Appeals Committee’s report, its recommendations on the cancellation of the primaries had since leaked to the media.
The primary election saw Akeredolu defeating Segun Abraham, the candidate of the party’s national leader, Senator Bola Tinubu.
