Primaries: Gov. Amosun vows to dump APC

Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, has threatened to dump the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The Governor said, “If the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party fails to uphold the candidacy” of his anointed governorship candidate, Abdul-Kabir Adekunle Akinlade, he “will leave.”

Amosun took the stand last night, just a few hours after Governors Akinwunmi Ambode (Lagos), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Umar Ganduje (Kano), Mohammed Abubakar (Bauchi) and Kashim Shettima (Borno) met with President Muhammadu Buhari to seek his intervention in the contentious primaries in the states.

The Ogun State Governor issued this threat during a meeting with some party leaders and his loyalists across the 20 local government areas of the state held at his private residence located inside Ibara GRA, Abeokuta.

One of the APC chieftains, who was present at the meeting, told Daily Sun that the governor, who briefed his loyalists on the outcome of his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari as well as the national leadership of APC, “did not give any hint on the party he may join.”

The party chieftain said that Amosun informed them that “rather than the NWC iron out the issue of the governorship, he (Amosun) 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 rules of the primary election on its head and produced Abiodun as the party’s candidate instead of Akinlade, who emerged through a direct primary.”

The party chieftain said Amosun “made it clear that he could not work with Abiodun, who he said lacked the wherewithal to win a senatorial district, let alone the whole of Ogun State, insisting he would rather bid APC goodbye rather than accept his candidacy.”

He added that the Governor was silent on the choice of the party, but made it clear that he would never defect to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).