By Tayo Joseph, Lagos
Candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the proposed May 12 election into the 33 Local Government and 35 Local Council Development Areas of Oyo State were elected through indirect primaries, on Friday.
The State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi; Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. Michael Adeyemo; State Chairman of the APC, Chief Akin Oke; his Deputy, Alhaji Isiaka Alimi; and Secretary, Hon. Mojeed Olaoya, supervised the election, which took place at Lafia Hotel, Ibadan.
The names of the consensus chairmanship candidates were read at the occasion, while councillorship aspirants were directed to visit their LGs and LCDAs to check those that also emerged through the consensus arrangement.
Addressing delegates at the event, the governor said that the consensus arrangement was adopted in line with Section 20A, Subsection 1,2,3 and 4 of the party’s constitution.
He said that the section empowers party’s leaders and stakeholders across the state to deliberate and reach a consensus on how to pick candidates for elections, in order to avoid what he called bad blood within the party’s hierarchy.
The governor explained that the desire of the party’s leadership to forestall rancour and the determination to go into the election as a united entity informed the adoption of the consensus arrangement.
Ajimobi said, “The adoption of consensus was a decision of the party’s stakeholders to avoid disunity and acrimony that could lead to failure.
“Let us thank God for the peaceful outing. You will see that most election primaries have always been very rancorous, but in our own case, it was very peaceful and was conducted in line with the constitution of our party.
“Particularly, if you look at page 74, Sections 1,2,3,4 of our constitution it was clearly stated that once you have elected members from the wards to the various levels of the party organs, you can have them as a collegiate group.
“They can then become delegates that will participate and vote at a designated location for candidates of their choice; and that is what we have done today.
“We have been able to bring together all elected party members, National and State Assembly members representing the state, including leaders from the local government and ward levels. We all agreed to have consensus candidates.”
The governor said that the party also consulted women leaders, youth groups and other stakeholders before the emergence of the candidates.
He expressed confidence that the APC would be the party to beat during the election giving its cohesion and rancor-free primaries ahead of the election.
