Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has accused the Adams Oshiomhole-led All Progressives Congress’ National Working Committee of being dictatorial in the running of the ruling party.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that the APC NWC adopted direct primary for the state governorship election scheduled to hold in September. The primary has been slated for June.
The APC spokesperson, Lanre Issa-Onilu, said in a statement that the party’s NWC made the decision on Thursday at the party’s secretariat in Abuja.
However, speaking through his Media Aide, Crusoe Osagie, on Friday, governor Obaseki said the NWC has no constitutional right to decide how the party governorship primary in the state will be conducted.
Obaseki noted that Oshiomhole and his executives cannot make any decisions on the primary without the knowledge of the National Executive Committee of the party.
He said, “That report was a scoop, there was no meeting of the NWC in which the decision was taken. If the Oshiomhole camp is having it at the back of their minds that it is what they want to do, they don’t have the power to do that.
“The power to direct what kind of primary to do rests on NEC and NEC at the last meeting decided that because of the dissenting voices, all modes of primary should be decided by the different state chapters as it was done in Kogi and Bayelsa. In Kogi, for example, they determined the kind of primary they wanted, and in Bayelsa, the same thing happened.
“So, in Edo, the same method will be adopted, according to the rules of NEC. We will now write the NWC to say this is the mode of primary that we want.”
He said that President Muhammadu Buhari had already adopted Obaseki and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State as the preferred candidates for the governorship elections in their states.
