The All Progressives Congress has submitted the name of a former President of the Nigeria Bar Association to the Independent National Electoral Commission as its candidate for the upcoming Ondo State governorship election.
This came amid reports that the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, had vetoed the decision of the party’s NWC over the Appeal Committee’s recommendation for a repeat of Ondo primaries of the party.
Akeredolu’s name was submitted to INEC by the National Organising Secretary of the APC, Senator Osita Izunaso.
Akeredolu’s name was said to have been submitted around 5 pm by Izunaso.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that Oyegun overruled the majority decision of the party’s National Working Committee to conduct a fresh primary to pick the party’s governorship candidate for the November 26 election in Ondo State.
The Appeal committee of the party headed by Mrs. Helen Bendega looked into the plethora of petitions filed by aspirants and some leaders of the party in respect of the September 3 primary election.
It recommended the cancellation of that disputed election, which purportedly produced Chief Rotimi Akeredolu, and the conduct of a fresh one.
Sources said the 12-member NWC met for three days on the recommendations of the Appeal Committee and after the deliberations, decided to put the issue to vote.
It was learnt that two motions were before the panel. One, adopt the recommendation of the Appeal’s panel to cancel the primaries that allegedly produced Akeredolu and conduct a fresh one.
And two, submit the name of the Vice Chairman of the party in the South-west zone to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to beat the commission’s submission deadline, pending the resolution of the logjam.
Six members, it was gathered, voted to uphold the recommendation of the Appeal Panel and conduct a fresh primary while five members voted to upturn the report of the panel and retain Akeredolu as candidate.
But contrary to the normal procedure that the Chairman could only cast a deciding vote in the event of a tie in the NWC, Oyegun voted to overrule the majority decision already reached by 6 NWC members.
“A majority of the NWC members had taken a decision with their votes. What the Chairman did was to overrule the majority and forced his opinion on the party,” one of the NWC members who pleaded not be named said last night.
The appeal panel, which examined the petitions against the governorship primary of the APC in the state, had recommended its cancellation.
In the report of the panel submitted on Monday, the panel asked the party leadership to set aside the primaries and to organise fresh one as soon as possible to beat the deadline set by INEC.
Both the Chairman and Secretary of the panel committee signed in support of the cancellation while the other member of the three-man panel disagreed with the cancellation.
The Appeal panel had hinged the cancellation on the corruption of the delegates list. It also observed that there was evidence that non-party members were recruited to participate in the exercise.
The party’s National Organising Secretary, Senator Osita Izunaso, was specifically accused of colluding to manipulate the Delegates’ List. He was also alleged to have provided extra tags to non-delegates to vote.
