Ondo APC Primary: Aggrieved Members Lock down Party Office

Ondo APC Primary: Aggrieved Members Lock down Party Office

As allegation on the attempt by some leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to impose an aspirant on the party in Ondo State ahead of the August 27 primary goes wild, aggrieved members yesterday locked down the party office and declared that the state party Chairman, Mr. Isaacs Kekemeke, had been suspended from office.

The aggrieved members, who besieged the party's office in Akure, the state capital, with placards of various inscriptions, accused Kekemeke of engaging in anti-party activities on the forthcoming primary of the party.

The members acting under the aegis of  Movement Against Imposition (MAI) led by the convener, Mr. Tolu Babaleye; the Secretary, Mr. Adelokiki Francis, and the Public Relations Officer, Mr. Gbenga Ajayi, told journalists at the party secretariat that the chairman had been sacked.

The MAI, which mobilised other sub-groups of the party from the 18 local government areas in the state barricaded the main entrance of the party's state secretariat.

The protesters accused Kekemeke of working along with some leaders who wanted a particular aspirant to emerge as the candidate.

Some of the inscriptions on their placards read: "Ondo State Minus Kekemeke Equals Victory’, No Impostor, No Imposition, No Endorsement’, Ondo ACCOMORAN Says No to Kekemeke’, Kekemeke Iis a Mole in APC’, Kekemeke is an Unrepentant Sinner’, APC Plus Kekemeke Equals Failure’,” among others.

The spokesperson of the protesters, Babaleye, accused Kekemeke of enforcing the endorsement of one of the 25 aspirants of the party as the candidate in the primary poll, as being directed by their national leader, Senator Ahmed Tinubu.

"Since he came back from Lagos, Kekemeke has made serious efforts to enforce the endorsement. Kekemeke openly informed the state executive committee that Tinubu has endorsed an aspirant and has instructed him to tell the leaders and delegates,” he stated.

Reacting swiftly, Kekemeke, who denied all the allegations against him, said the action of the protesters was nothing but a political incitement from some people with inordinate ambition to cause chaos, mischief and distrust in the party.

"I don't think the party has any problem at all, but some see ambition getting out of fulfillment, some see ambition sliding off and it takes only real men to see his ambition gradually getting to an end and will not be emotional about it," he said.

He blamed the  protest against his leadership and the purported endorsement from the Bourdillon as uncalled for, saying: "Anybody can express his preference.

"Endorsement is simply the preference for a particular aspirant and this is what everybody has been doing. This is what every leader and party members had been doing, this is different from adoption."

He advised all party members and all camps to face the real issues at hand rather than politics of calumny.