Some aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the forthcoming Ondo State governorship election primary have accused the national leader of the party, Senator Bola Tinubu, of plans to impose a candidate on them.
But the party has denied the allegation, insisting that Tinubu did not summon the leaders as alleged.
Director of Media and Publicity of the party in the state, Mr. Steve Otaloro, has dispelled the allegation, saying there was no time the leaders were summoned to Lagos State by the national leader.
He said:-
“The party has said it several times that the primary election would be free, fair and transparent. So, as far as we in the APC are concerned, there will not be any imposition of candidate in the primary.
“To the best of my knowledge, no party leader in the state has been invited by Tinubu to work for anybody.”
Speaking on behalf of the aspirants, Dr. Tunji Abayomi said that the national leader of the party had allegedly summoned all party leaders in the state to Lagos State and directed them to shun their ambition and support a particular aspirant.
Abayomi, who said that the decision of the APC national leader was not acceptable to the majority of the aspirants because the action was against the constitution of the party, said:
“I am speaking on behalf of the majority of the aspirants and we want to know whether this is true as we have a constitution that determines the procedure of electing a candidate.
“We are from Ondo State and we expect that our affairs should be largely controlled either by law or the people of the state. So, we reject the government of leaders by the leaders to the privileged set of leaders.”
He alleged that Tinubu had promised to spend huge sum of money for the leaders so as to ensure that the favoured aspirant wins the primary in the next two weeks.
According to him:-
“If he (Tinubu) had now directed that this is the person he wants to use, that means he is the one constituting government over the people to his own benefit.
“The aspirants will reject him (Tinubu’s candidate) because that is his (Tinubu) own candidate and not the candidate of the people of Ondo State. We understand that he has already directed that a certain governor in the South-West should raise money for the delegates to vote for his appointed candidate, but this will not work.”