A few days before the governorship primary of the All Progressives Congress in Ondo State, the elders of the party, also known as Ondo APC Aborigines, have agreed to support the state governor, Mr Lucky Aiywdatiwa, to be the candidate of the party.
The elders, who decided at their meeting held in Akure the state capital on Tuesday, said Aiyedatiwa scored the highest points out of the three aspirants shortlisted by the group.
The other two frontline aspirants picked are the late Paul Akintelure and a former Commissioner for Finance, Mr Wale Akinterinwa.
PUNCH Online reports that the elders said they had penned down Aiyedatiwa, Akintelure and Akinterinwa for screening and also for endorsement ahead of the party’s primary scheduled to take place on April 20, 2024.
The group had also warned the party against picking a ‘stranger’ as the candidate of the party at the primary.
Speaking with journalists after the meeting of the group on Tuesday, the chairman and former Ambassador to Togo, Sola Iji, said the group took the decision following the recommendations of the committee set up to assess all the governorship aspirants and pick the best out of them.
The group also insisted that the candidate must not be a stranger to the party members and must be a loyal party man who would respect and take care of the welfare of the members.
Iji said, “We resolved in our first meeting to commit ourselves to a unanimous goal in the forthcoming governorship primary of APC in the state. We consider this as a necessary step towards asserting our true worth in the party.
“Nevertheless, during our second meeting, we unanimously agreed to set up a nine-man committee headed by Mrs Christy Olufowose to identify the various aspirants jostling for the ticket of our party; assess them using some well-thought-out criteria and present three of them for further consideration by the leadership of the group.
“At our last meeting, the committee submitted their report wherein Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, Wale Akinterinwa and Dr Paul Akintelure were recommended.
“Furthermore, the group mandated its leadership to have further consultation and deliberations in arriving at the choice of our preferred aspirant. Consequently, the leadership of the group met, reviewed the report of the committee and considered the three recommended aspirants qualified and worthy.
“However, in contriving the choice of our preferred aspirant, the leaders believed that it is normal and conventional to offer a right of first refusal to His Excellency, Lucky Aiyedatiwa as a sitting governor.”
Iji added that part of the reasons of the group in choosing Aiyedatiwa was his conduct and performance in less than 100 days in office as the governor of the state.
“On the whole, having been satisfied with the conduct and performance of His Excellency, Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, we are pleased to inform the general public that he is our preferred aspirant in the forthcoming governorship primary of APC in Ondo State.
“By this decision, we are determined to deploy our numerical strength and resources to ensure the victory of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa at the primary. It is our fervent belief that Governor Aiyedatiwa’s candidature will position our party for a resounding victory at the general election and engender good governance in the state”, he stressed.
The Independent National Electoral Commission has fixed April for the governorship primaries of all political parties to take place, while the governorship election was scheduled for November 16.
The Ondo APC has scheduled April 20 for its primary while the national secretariat of the party has set up a nine-man committee to conduct the exercise.