The National Chairman of the ruling APC, Adams Oshiomhole has given some insights on last week’s disqualification of the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki from the Party’s primary election for the forthcoming guber poll. The former labour leader disclosed that the APC cannot bend its rules in favour of the governor.
The APC screening committee had disqualified Obaseki from participating in the governorship primary election in Edo scheduled for June 22, but it cleared Osagie Ize-Iyamu believed to be the former governor’s favoured contestant.
Oshiomhole’s position was made known after meeting with Ibrahim Gambari, chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday. The former NLC president said he does not know the governor’s move, and that the APC has rules governing it and every member must play by those rules.
“I don’t know about exit. What we see from your media, electronic and print, is that he visited a number of PDP governors. We read from electronic and print that those consultations may have to do with his plan and so on. But we are not here to speculate,” he said.
“Our party is not a party of big men. It is governed by rules. Both the small and the big are subjected to those rules. I’m sure you will agree that our president led by example when we conducted the direct primary in the last presidential election. We still went to Eagle Square for affirmation.
“So, if the president did not have the right of first refusal because our constitution does not provide for it, we cannot under any circumstances now bend the rules when it comes to some people and change the rules when it comes to others.
“Our duty as the management board of APC is to ensure that we strictly obey the provisions of our constitution, which empowers the National Working Committee to conduct primaries for president, governors, national assembly, and state houses of assembly.”
Speculations have now risen that Obaseki, who is seeking a second term, will be defecting to the opposition PDP after he had met with some its governors.
