FORMER Ogun State Governor, Chief Olusegun Osoba has warned members of the All Progressive Congress [APC] in the State to learn from the Osun State experience and make sure they do not go into next year’s election with a divided house.
According to him, the problems the party encountered in last Saturday’s election was not much from the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP] but from the division within the party which led to some prominent members leaving the party.
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Addressing a consultative meeting in Abeokuta with virtually all the aspirants jostling for the party tickets, the former Governor said that the mode of electing the party candidates through direct option as announced by the National Working Committee of the party should not cause any division as the option adopted was constitutional.
He explained that the electoral process was the business of the NWC adding that according to the constitution of the party the direct primary option cannot be used only if there was no dissenting aspirant to a consensus arrangement.
“The electoral process is the business of NWC. I was the chairman of the APC constitution drafting committee and I know the contents. The mode of prescribed is the direct primary option which vested the determinants of those to run the party and the choice of the candidates in the members of the party.
“In that committee who drafted the constitution then was Malami, the current Attorney General, Dr. Chris Ngiige, Otunba Niyi Adebayo., Chief Oyegun was Vice Chairman.
The power to conduct primaries is vested in the NWC. Let us follow the NWC directives” Chief Osoba said the meeting was called to preach unity and prevent the kind of thing which happened in Osun State adding that it was the division in APC that would allow “a candidate who never said a word in his campaigns “to have such a showing.
He said that he decided not to say anything about the primaries until the NWC made its decision known because he did not want to interfere or be seen to interfere with the process.
