ALL Progressives Congress (APC) National Vice Chairman (Southwest) yesterday insisted that the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) members voted on the Ondo State Governorship Appeal Panel Report, Chief Pius Akinyelure.
He was reacting to a claim to his Southeast counterpart and a fellow NWC member colleague Hilliad Eta that the party’s NWC never voted on the submission of the party’s governorship candidate to INEC prior to the 22nd September INEC deadline.
Eta had accused Akinyelure of giving a wrong account of the events that transpired at the NWC meetings of 19th, 20th and 22nd September.
But speaking in Lagos yesterday, Akinyelure denied ever voting in support of the Election Appeal Committee report being ‘thrown out’, describing Eta’s vituperations as a “red herring, largely intended to distract from the democratic aberration that occurred at the party’s last NWC meeting of 22nd September, where the will of the minority was allowed to ride roughshod over that of the majority”.
The APC chieftain clarified that contrary to Eta’s claim, the decision taken at the NWC was that the appeal committee’s recommendations be temporarily set aside in favour of a political resolution to the impasse.
Akinyelure stated that when it became evident that this political resolution was not forthcoming, a majority of NWC members agreed that the name of an interim candidate be submitted to INEC to meet the impending deadline.
He reiterated that the party’s NWC never voted to reject the appeal committee’s report, as that, in its self, would be ultra vires and beyond the authority of the NWC. He averred that the decision taken at the party’s NWC meeting of the 19th September was to merely temporarily set aside the appeal committee’s recommendations, not ‘throw out’ the appeal committee’s report as Eta claimed.
According to Akinyelure, the appeal committee’s report contains very weighty allegations bordering on criminal falsification and distortion of the Delegates’ List.
The statement reads: “Any sensible person knows that the moment a register of voters is falsified, the credibility of an election based on such a register becomes questionable, regardless of any outer façade of transparency. The NWC’s remit, vis-à-vis the appeal committee report, was either to accept or reject the recommendations of the appeal committee report.”
He described as ‘arbitrary and unilateral’ Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the National Chairman’s decision to forward the name of Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) to INEC. Akinyelure clarified that since Eta was not the appointed spokesperson of the NWC, his comments should not be construed by the media and general public as representative of the NWC as a body.
He said: “If, as Eta accepts, the NWC is the recognised appellate body under the party’s constitution, how then does it sit comfortably with him when that body’s head makes unilateral decisions that don’t reflect the majority view? It simply defies logic to be honest.
“Since Hilliad Eta was not the appointed spokesperson of the NWC, his comments should not be construed by the media and general public as representative of the NWC as a body.”
Akinyelure challenged Eta to make public the names of the members at the last NWC meeting of 22nd September who were against the submission of an ‘interim’ candidate to INEC.
He insisted that six NWC members expressed their support for the submission of an interim candidate to INEC at the 22nd September meeting as against the five who were opposed.