Says, ‘Party’s National leader has right to back aspirant’
AN All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Razaq Ayodele Obe, has insisted that the party’s National Leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu committed no offence for supporting any aspirant of his choice in the governorship poll in Ondo State.
The oil and gas mogul, in a chat with reporters in Ado Ekiti yesterday, criticised an APC governorship aspirant in Ondo State, Dr. Tunji Abayomi, for his letter to Tinubu, accusing the latter of planning to impose an aspirant as his preferred candidate for the November 26 poll.
The petroleum engineer-turned politician, who hails from Ilara Mokin in Ifedore Local Government of Ondo State, described Abayomi’s action as hypocritical and an attempt to gain cheap popularity.
Obe noted that rather than attacking the personality of Tinubu, whose support Abayomi had also courted, he advised him and other aspirants to keep on reaching out to the delegates, who are eligible to vote at the shadow poll.
He said: “I am one of those averse to the idea of one politician rising up and imposed a candidate. But Asiwaju Tinubu reserves the right to support whoever he wants to become the Ondo governorship flagbearer provided the constitution and guidelines on how a candidate should emerge is not circumvented.
“I would have risen up to condemn the APC national leader, if he had unilaterally imposed a candidate. But he had given assurances that although he is backing a particular aspirant, the rights of other aspirants would not be trampled upon by disallowing free and fair primary election.
“With all sense of modesty and rational thinking, I expected the aspirants to have praised Tinubu, rather than pouring invectives on his personality in spite of the sacrifices he made for APC to thrive in Nigeria and Southwest.”
“To me, it could have been a different thing if Asiwaju Tinubu has secretly been supporting a candidate of the PDP. The person they accused him of supporting is a member of the APC and it would be a flagrant and brazen infringement of his rights for people to call for his head for taking a stand in this matter.”
In spite of the raging controversies, Obe was confident that the APC will win the election on the premise that the Ondo populace are already disillusioned with lack-lustre performances of Governor Olusegun Mimiko’s administration.
Obe appealed to the national and zonal leaders of the party to rein in their members and prevent looming crisis in the party that could rob it of victory despite the open and unfettered chances the party now enjoys.
He said the party was able to make remarkable outing in the 2015 general elections in Ondo State, owing to palpable cohesion within its ranks.
He urged the political gladiators to sustain the tempo for APC to bounce back to reckoning in the next election.