The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, yesterday maintained that the party had not received any official letter from Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State, rejecting direct mode of primary adopted by the National Working Committee(NWC).
Oshiomhole, while fielding questions from newsmen at the end of a closed-door meeting with some governors elected on the platform of the APC, said the governors had agreed to support winner of the forthcoming gubernatorial primary election.
When asked to specifically react to the reports that Obaseki had rejected the direct mode of primary, he said: “I don’t have any letter or document to that effect. These are very formal matters.”
He added: “We have since published our time-table because under the law, we are required to give INEC at least 21 days notice to monitor our primaries and to state the mode of our primaries. And of course, the NWC had approved direct primaries for Edo. That of Ondo has not been discussed because that will come much later, because Edo will come about three weeks before Ondo.
“We have commenced the sale of forms, I think as of last Friday to my knowledge, three people had picked the forms. I think by today (Monday) more people have picked the forms. So, we’re selling forms to all those who wish to buy based on the guidelines and of course as the Chairman of the Progressives Governors rightly said, we have ensured in our letter to INEC and even this (Monday) morning, we had a virtual meeting with INEC leadership. We will conduct primaries taking into account the protocols on COVID-19 by the PTF and NCDC. I think everything has been going fine.”
The former labour leader, who dismissed the insinuation that the meeting was convened to resolve the feud between him and Obaseki, stressed that it was a regular interface between the NWC and the Progressives Governors’ Forum (PGF).
The PGF Chairman and Kebbi State governor, Atiku Bagudu, who corroborated Oshiomhole’s remarks, stressed that the meeting was not about the feud between the national chairman and his godson.
Governors sighted by our correspondents at the venue of yesterday’s meeting included those of Kebbi, Bagudu; Ondo, Rotimi Akeredolu; Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Plateau, Simon Lalong; Kano, Umar Ganduje; Kwara, Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq and Gombe, Muhammed Inuwa.
