Amosun threatens to leave APC after his Ogun State governorship candidate is rejected

OGUN State governor Senator Ibikunle Amosun has threatened to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) if the party refuses to uphold the candidacy of his anointed governorship candidate Adekunle Akinlade.

Last week, the Ogun State chapter of the APC conducted its primaries in a development which split the party in two. Governor Amosun had backed Mr Akinlade, a member of the Federal House of Representatives but another faction had supported oil magnate Dapo Abiodun, with both sides claiming victory, thus forcing the AOPC's national working committee (NWC) to intervene in the matter.

After the APC's NWC looked at the case, it declared Mr Abiodun as the winner with 102,305 votes, compared with Jimi Lawal (51,153 votes), Adekunle Akinlade (23, 443 votes), Bimbo Ashiru (29, 764 votes), Senator Adegbenga Kaka (17, 771 votes) and Abayomi Semako Koroto (9, 610). APC's acting national publicity secretary, Yekini Nabena, said that subsequently, the party officially presents Mr Abiodun as its Ogun State governorship candidate.

Unhappy with the development, Governor Amosun told a meeting of party leaders that he could not work with Mr Abiodun, who he said lacked the wherewithal to win a senatorial district, let alone the whole of Ogun State. He told them that he would rather bid APC goodbye rather than accept Mr Abiodun's candidacy.

One of the APC chieftains, who was present at the meeting, said that the governor

informed them that rather than the NWC iron out the issue, he was asked to share the national and state assemblies tickets with certain group of individuals, who, according to him, did not participate in both the governorship and legislative primaries. He added that the governor berated those he termed Abujaconnection APC for standing the rules of the primary election on its head and producing Mr Abiodun as the party’s candidate instead of Mr Akinlade, who emerged through a direct primary.

According to the party source, Governor Amosun was silent on the choice of the party he would join if he left the APC but made it clear that he would never defect to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Over the last week, several APC governors have met with President Muhammadu Buhari to express their displeasure with the primaries in their states after candidates they backed were not chosen by the party.