A former national Secretary of the ruling All progressives Congress, APC Iyiola Omisore, analysts say, appears to have doubled down on his protest over the party’s recent decision to disqualify him from the upcoming governorship primary in Osun state, as he failed to attend Wednesday’s reconciliation meeting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu held with all APC aspirants in Aso Rock, Presidential Villa.
Omisore, a former Deputy Governor of the state was disqualified alongside six others by the APC Screening Committee, which only cleared Bola Oyebamji and Mulikat Abiola Jimoh to contest the party’s sole ticket for next year’s governorship election.
The Committee claimed that Omisore and other disqualified candidates failed to meet some criteria to contest the primary election, even though the former APC scribe has bitterly reacted by describing the committee’s action as ‘a huge joke’.
To douse the tension created by the issue, President Tinubu today met with some aggrieved aspirants, who have now agreed to step down for Oyebamji as the consensus candidate, with the exception of Omisore who shunned the meeting, even though sources close to him informed the magazine that he was invited to the parley.
The aspirants who stepped down include former Deputy Governor Benedict Olugboyega Alabi, Dotun Babayemi, Akin Ogunbiyi, Mulikat Abiola Jimoh, Senator Babajide Omoworare, Kunle Adegoke (SAN), and Babatunde Haketer Oralusi.
Expressing his anger after his disqualification four days ago, the former Deputy Governor said the party made a big mistake by stopping “veterans” like him from contesting the primary, calling for serious caution.
Omisore: “Well, that panel report is the jokiest report of the year. It is quite unfortunate that people have taken partisanship beyond politics.
“We know the panel produced multiple reports, and the one submitted to the secretariat was not the original. As we speak, none of us has been shown the report or told why we were disqualified.
“I am the only one who has met them. But we have the same reservations. So far, so good. All of us will meet the appeal panel individually. But I asked them, ‘What are the allegations, because we haven’t seen any.
“We haven’t been written to. So, what are the bases of the disqualification? You said we didn’t have nominators, five per local government. But the law says, he who alleges must prove. They should have used another method to disqualify us.
“But you can know from our pedigree that the disqualification wasn’t the right word to use for us because we are germane in this thing. We are the veterans! You can see for yourself that where you have disqualified people like us in any contest, where do we go from there?” he stated.
Not a few Nigerians watching what is going on in the state of the Living Spring, as Osun is well know insist there’s a big trouble ahead for the party if it failed to reconcile all the aspirants, as it prepares to face the incumbent Governor Adeleke, who on Tuesday picked the Accord party sole ticket for the election.
The APC will need to put its house in order to be able to dislodge Adeleke aka the Dancing Governor, because of his reported popularity among the people of the state, analysts warn.
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