- Governor Ibikunle Amosun was adopted as consensus candidate of the APC for the Senate seat of Ogun central
- The party also adopted other aspirants for various elective positions as consensus candidates ahead of the APC primaries
- Elders of the APC in the state have dissociated themselves from the zoning formula adopted in the selection of the aspirants
Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun state emerged the candidate for ‘Ogun Central’ senatorial race on Tuesday, September 11, as he and elders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), unveiled consensus candidates for National Assembly ahead of the party's primaries.
This happened less that 24 hours after the ruling APC issued a warning to the state chapters on how to pick their consensus candidates.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Amosun was the holder of the Ogun Central senatorial seat between 2003 and 2007, but this time around, he will be displacing the incumbent, Lanre Tejuoso.
The report said the announcement was made at the presidential lodge in Abeokuta. Six out of the nine candidates for the House of Representatives were also announced.
Apart from Amosun, other adopted candidates for the Senate are Chief Lekan Mustapha (Ogun East) and the Chief of Staff (CoS) to the state governor, Tolu Odebiyi (Ogun West). Mustapha was also the holder of the seat between 2007 and 2011, as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
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Also, the six adopted candidates for House of Representatives seats include the speaker of the House of Assembly, Suraj Adekunbi (Egbado North/Ipokia); former chairman of Ado-Odo/Ota, Rotimi Rahman (Ota); the state commissioner for Special Duties, Mr Leke Adewolu (Ewekoro/Ifo).
Others are the director general of the bureau of lands, Biyi Ismail (Ijebu North/Ijebu North-East/Ogun-waterside); Biyi Otegbeye (Egbado South /Ipokia) and Hon Mikail Kazeem (Abeokuta North/Obafemi-Owode/Odeda).
The report said the announcements which followed the House of Assembly candidates adopted were met with mixed reactions by members of the party.
While some members hailed the governor and jubilated over the choice of their preferred candidates, others who expressed anger considered some choices as unpopular and described them as ‘imposition’.
The governor described the reactions as ‘the beauty of democracy’ and told aggrieved members to wait till the time of primaries when the party would finalise all issues.
The party had on September 5, at a stakeholders meeting adopted consensus arrangement for selecting its candidates for the 2019 polls with a provision to resort to direct primaries should the consensus arrangement fail.
Amosun last week presented House of Representative member, Abdulkabir Akinlade to party members in Abeokuta as the consensus governorship candidate of the party, as well as Peju Adebajo as his running mate
Amosun had explained that Akinlade had emerged among other nine aspirants from the Ogun-West Senatorial District to which the party had zoned the governorship seat.
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However, elders of the party from the Ogun East senatorial district dissociated themselves from the purported zoning arrangement to Ogun West senatorial district and had since unveiled the state commissioner for commerce and industry, Bimbo Ashiru, as the consensus candidate from the area.
Dapo Abiodun, a governorship aspirant from Ogun East has also kicked against the arrangement.
The bloc is claiming the right to produce the successor to Amosun based on the principle of power rotation in the state.
NAIJ.com earlier reported that with eight months to the end of his tenure as governor of Ogun state, Ibikunle Amosun, on Wednesday, September 5, announced that he was eyeing a seat in the Nigerian Senate during the 2019 general elections.
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Source: Naija.ng
