EKITI GUBER: AKANDE, APC LEADERS MEET, CONSIDER CONSENSUS CANDIDATE

Ahead of the rescheduled Ekiti State gubernatorial primaries which will bring up a flag bearer for the All Progressives Congress (APC), top party leaders from the South West yesterday held a high level meeting with aspirants ostensibly to arrive at a consensus candidate so as to boost the party’s chances ahead of the election.

Among the leaders were the party’s national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former governor of Osun State, Bisi Akande who met with all the 33 aspirants contesting for the party’s ticket in Ekiti State as part of efforts to produce a consensus candidate for the election.

The meeting which held last night at the Lagos State Lodge in Abuja, also had former governor of Ekiti State, Niyi Adebayo, former governor of Ogun State, Segun Oshoba and many other APC South-West leaders in attendance.

Recall that the APC governorship primary election was aborted last Saturday due to violence among the party delegates and agents which forced the committee to postpone the election.

There were accusations and counter-accusations between minister of Mines and Steel, Dr Kayode Fayemi, Babafemi Ojudu and Bimbo Daramola over last Saturday’s crisis that erupted at the venue of the primaries.

Speaking with newsmen after a closed door meeting which lasted three hours, former governor of Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, said the resolution of the closed door meeting with all the aspirants will be communicated to the party.

Akande said: “We took a decision on what will be the best advantage to our party and the country. Consensus is already written in our constitution and it is an option. Also primary election is already in our constitution. But what we want is the general happiness of the leaders of the party, the contestants and our party.”

On whether the aspirants agreed to step down for one of them, he said “that option is given to them, but it require them going back, think about it and inform us.”

On whether there will be a fresh primary election, he said, “We are going to talk to the party about what the aspirants have said and what we all thought was best and we know that the party will take the right decision.

“The party choose the old date, choose the modalities and the method of doing it and when it was aborted, the party cancelled it. Who am I to say I disagree with that? I was not part of that process. I am now going to be part of the new process so that we don’t have the kind of problems we had.”

ANDREW ESSIEN

Read More at: https://leadership.ng/2018/05/09/ekiti-guber-tinubu-akande-apc-leaders-meet-consider-consensus-candidate/