Oshiomhole,APC National Chairman
The
National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC),
Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu on Wednesday granted an interview to
journalists at the APC National Secretariat on some of the Party’s
post-primary issues.
Excerpts:
- VON DG, Osita Okechukwu media outbursts
He
is a highly respected and senior member of our party, but you can
also understand that this is not about him and the party, it is about
his quest to pick the Senatorial ticket of his constituency and that
is about ambition. When that does not happen-like the Yoruba would
say, you won’t beat a child and say he must not cry. He has a right
to ventilate his anger and it is for the party to also listen to him.
He may have gone overboard making all sorts of unfounded allegations
but you also have to understand the situation that he is now, he lost
out.
If
that same process had favoured him, he would be in his office in an
air-conditioned atmosphere drinking coffee and taking a laugh at
whoever was complaining but that didn’t happen so you would expect
him to complain. There would be someone to blame in such a situation
so he has picked on the National Chairman unfortunately. But the
chairman has no blame in this. If you have issues with the process,
you can complain about the process. We had an appeal panel, you could
take recourse to that. The internal mechanism for dispute resolution
of this party is fairly strong and responsive and it is there for
every party member no matter high or low to access. And a lot of
people have done that and a lot of such issues have been resolved.
If
he does have very good reasons to have redress, he would get that but
his has chosen to go that path (Media) which is quite unfortunate. It
is not everybody who has lost an election that has the capacity to
soak it in. Some must express themselves in the way Osita Okechukwu
has chosen to go about it. It is not about the National Chairman like
I have said, it is about the fact that he is a party to the dispute
and in such a situation, not everybody would win some must loose. He
lost it in his reaction to it, everything he said was completely at
variance with the real situation.
- Nepotism allegations
There
are five members for each state on the panel (which conducted the
primary) we have 36 states and the FCT for the National Assembly and
he (Osita Okechukwu) mentioned only nine panel chairs (from Edo
state). Definitely, the others are from some states. By the time you
add up the figures, you find out that the appointment of nine cannot
be called nepotism in a situation where you have 36 states. When you
pick what suits your cause that is what he has done but by the time
all the facts are laid there are no issues. Everything boils down to
the fact that he lost out and he is not happy about it, there must be
a culprit, somebody must be blamed for it.
- Ogun State
It
is a straight forward case. If we speak to the merit of this case,
the whole world saw it, the visuals were everywhere, where the Ogun
State governor gathered some aspirants, stakeholders and said
clearly, there won't be primaries and right there he pointed at who
the next Governor, Senator, House of Representatives candidates would
be. He named himself the next Senatorial candidate.
Even
if they have accepted those people, it is against the procedure,
especially for a governor to open say a thing like that.
It
was clearly stated the party gave two options which is the direct and
indirect primaries and you are to have stakeholders' meetings where
majority are to decide.
In
the case of Ogun, after that exercise failed after they tried to
handpick who will be what, they sent a letter that they have agreed
on direct primary and the party has no choice than to endorse what
you want.
On
the day they all came for screening including the governor, he
suddenly left with other aspirants and returned back to Abeokuta;
gathered some people and sent back to the NWC that they wanted
indirect primary and the other aspirants said we were all here
together, that they didn't know when this change was made.
Meanwhile,
someone had gone to court and the court had barred the State
executive from anything to do with the party but we all saw on
national television where the State Governor and the State executive,
actually conducted their own primary and the process threw up the
Governor's preferred candidate. it was the SSG in Ogun State, who was
reading the result until it occurred to him that he had no power to
announce the names, so he handed over to the state chairman of the
party who for also shouldn't have done that – he is statutory
barred, the court had told him not to participate in the primary.
Secondly, the state chairman has no power to conduct primary that
power resides with the NWC.
So
whatever the governor did was self-help and there is no provision for
self help in the party’s constitution. Eventually the NWC panel
that was constituted to conduct the primary went to Abeokuta and did
the primary. The governor’s preferred candidate chose not to
participate in that exercise. So the party stands by the result of
that primary it conducted in Ogun state.
The
governor has done his best to get validation for his self-help. That
is not possible. The first thing he did was to start saying things
that made it look like something wrong has happened when nothing of
such has happened.
Secondly,
he took some monarchs to meet the president. I am surprised because
someone like him, with due respect to him should have understood the
nature of the president we have, that no matter how close you are to
him, he will listen to you but he will ask for the rules to be
followed.
So,
the next thing we had was he looking for who to blame, and Asiwaju
Bola Tinubu and Chief Segun Osoba readily came to his mind and he
blamed them for that. The question to ask is whether they were the
one who gave directive to him to organise his own primaries or they
were the one who instructed him not to participate in the primaries
or his candidate not to participate in primaries the party organised.
If
he didn't do all of that has not been that and there has not been
that consciousness to self appraise and ask himself, have I done the
right thing? Am I asking for what is fair? Am I not putting the party
in a position to ask them to do what's wrong? Those are the questions
we expect Governor of Ogun State to ask himself. He needs to self
appraise, look at the actions he has taken and come to that
conclusions that he's taking the wrong route.
- Kaduna State
It
was the outcome of the primary, properly conducted. The party tried
to protectits members in the national assembly for obvious reasons
following what has been going on the national assembly. We know the
carrots that had been dangled at them. We have a responsibility to
ensure that we have a grip on the legislative arm of government so
that we can run a smooth government. So we tried to protect our
legislators. But the other people can only understand and accept
that. If they say no, there is nothing the party can do.it is within
their right to say we must go to the field. The initial effort of the
party did not get the blessing of other people in that area who are
also entitled to bid for positions. The primaries were eventually
conducted, Senator Shehu Sani opted out, he relied on the earlier
decision.
At
the end of the day, no matter what plan you have even though you are
acting on expedience, rule of law, democracy will prevail. It was
democracy that prevailed in Kaduna.
- Zamfara State
We
submitted list of candidates for legislative elections in Zamfara
state, if INEC did not take it, it is a different thing. We have a
right to submit and INEC has the legal responsibility to receive.
INEC cannot disqualify candidates we all know that. We have said
clearly that whatever claims that INEC is making is not correct or a
true representation of what happened and we will continue to take
progressive steps to ensure that INEC does what is right.
- Rivers State
The
Supreme Court ruling on the Rivers APC governorship primaries has
been subjected to different interpretations. As at today, the party
has not yet taken a position on the ruling. We have a legal
department and they will look into it and do what is right on it. The
party will come out clearly on its position after studying the
judgment.
- Imo State
The
issue of submission of governorship candidates to INEC falls due on
November 2nd, so we haven't reached the stage of where we will submit
names or beat the deadline. You are aware that there was a court
action challenging the Imo governorship primary election. The
position of the party is that whatever court judgment, good or bad we
must comply with it. We will only decide who will be APC's
governorship candidate for Imo state by November 2nd.
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