As the uncertainty surrounds the micro-zoning of party’s positions to Southwestern States ahead of the March 26 national convention of the All Progressives Congress (APC), former minister of communications, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, and Prof. Abideen Olaiya have expressed their frustrations over alleged exclusion of Oyo State from the zonal meetings co-cordinated by progressive governors from zone.
The News Carrier NG reliably gathered that APC governors from Southwest are reportedly backing former deputy governor of Osun State, Iyiola Omisore for the position of national secretary.
According to Governor Rotimi Akeredolu, in a statement on Sunday, the national secretary was micro-zoned to Oyo/Osun axis.
Apart from Prof. Olaiya and Barrister Shittu, Senator Omisore (Osun) and Executive Director, Niger Delta Power Holding, Ife Oyedele (Ondo) have also obtained nomination forms.
The duo of Shittu and Olaiya, in conversations with the Nigerian Tribune, argued that the fact that Oyo does not have a sitting governor of APC extraction does not mean that the state should be excluded whenever critical party decisions are to be made.
Having purchased the form to contest, they noted that they are unaware of a consensus and still look forward to being screened on Tuesday and the delegates making their choice of a national secretary at the convention.
They claimed that the state chairman, Isaac Omodewu, who is the de facto leader of the party, is being sidelined from decisions of the South-West caucus of the APC and this may not augur well for the fortunes of the party in the state.
Shittu said: “Our party is a democratic party. By the grace of God, we will go into contest on Saturday. Nobody has informed us of the decision of leaders of the South-West caucus. There is no way the South-West caucus of the party will be holding a meeting and I should not be a part of it. The fact that Oyo does not have a governor does not mean that there are no APC members in Oyo state.
“If APC is to make a better outing, it is only right for us to be involved in whatever leaders in the South West are doing. Consensus means that all parties must agree on a single candidate. As a democratic party, we should not be afraid of election. There must be a properly organized meeting and all contestants must agree that they don’t want to go for election.”
On his part, Olaiya said: “It is just unfortunate that we do not have a serving APC governor in Oyo State. However, that does not preclude Oyo from being part of the South West. That post was zoned to South West.
“If there will be a consensus, the six states should sit at a table not three, four or five at the exclusion of one state. Such consensus is somehow. When five come together to take decision on behalf of the six, can that be referred to as consensus? Three states purchased forms for Secretary, if there had been consensus; it should be from one state. It means that there was no consensus. When this happens, the next thing is to allow a level playing ground for all the contestants because we all belong to South West and to the party.
“I will plead with the governors to allow us a level-play ground since they couldn’t properly engage us to have a consensus. The only better opportunity available is to allow us have a level-playing ground. If they could not sit us down to agree on zoning this to that, like they have in other regions. We have 11 posts given to the South West and nobody can equivocally say this is what is given to this state.”
