20th July, 2020
By Taiwo Okanlawon
Ondo State Governor, Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu has urged other aspirants in the ongoing primary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to see the election as a battle which is not the end, but they should unite to fight the battle ahead of them.
Akeredolu, who spoke to P.M News during the voting process at the Dome event centre, said fighting the war together means none of them will miss out.
In his words, “We are here fighting a battle, and all of us have different tools. Somebody will win the battle, but the battle is not the end of it, we still have the war in front and it’s that war, that is a goal and there is no single person that wins this primary that can alone fight the war.
“So to my fellow aspirants, I believe that whoever wins, let us all gather together, gather our tools together, and fight the war together. We fight this war together is a win for all of us, so nobody we miss out, so we can do great things together for this state,” he added.
Reacting to Olushola Oke’s remarks that the indirect primary adopted is not legal according to the party’s constitution, Akeredolu
“I don’t agree with him, I am a lawyer, he is a lawyer and a senior advocate. I am also a senior advocate, with 22 years of experience, so I don’t agree with him, but I know that he is limited been that he just joined the party, he came in 2016 almost after President Jonathan lost. So the party constitution is there, but there have been decisions of NEC that allows this type of primaries.
If he reads through the subsection, the final one says ‘in spite of notwithstanding, in all these provisions, NEC can give so so guidelines, one of those guidelines is what we are operating now and there nothing anybody can do.
Responding to another allegation made by Isaacs Kekemeke, the immediate past chairman of APC who’s also an aspirant, that the delegates list was kept to favour the incumbent, Akeredolu said the delegate list is well known to all party members since the APC came into existence.
According to him, all aspirants also know who the delegates are and not waiting for a list to meet them.
“How is that possible? Kekemeke got the delegates list the same time I got mine, leave the time.
“He and I know who the delegates are, I went to all local governments, I don’t need a list to talk to delegates, I knew that by the decision of NEC, all excos of local governments are going to delegates, I knew that all principal officers of the ward are going to be delegates and I know who the statutory members are, must I wait for the list before I move? I don’t have to wait for that, I knew what to do, there are no delegates here that I don’t talk to.”
“I told them whatever mode they want us to use, direct, indirect, or consensus, I am good. Penalty kick, free kick, Aketi is a goal, we are going to win.
“He was just giving excuses because you sat back and waiting. I got to know about a week that they are not using direct, it will be indirect, it took me about 3 days to get to all delegates, at a point I took ill, so if anybody is saying he doesn’t see the list, we all know them,” he concluded.
However, governor Akeredolu is currently leading at the sorting and counting of the election results, with over 10 local governments votes sorted already.