We were directed to return “a favoured candidate ”
– member of APC’s NWC Ogun State Election Panel
A member of the Governorship Primaries NWC panel in Ogun State, Dr Samuel Wilcox has confessed that the leadership of the party under the National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomole had instructed them to “deliver” a “favoured” candidate as winner of the election even before the commencement of the exercise.
Wilcox who is from Rivers State, in an interview with journalists in Abeokuta, shortly after he was ejected from the panel for objecting to the unholy instruction, said the committee was instructed to deliver the candidate as winner of the election but some members on arrival in the state found out that the “anointed” candidate was unpopular among party members.
Recall that the gubernatorial primaries of the APC in Ogun State has become controversial with the announcement of two different results, one by the leadership of the party in the state which decared Hon. Abdul-kabir Akinlade as winner and another by the panel from Abuja which declared Dapo Abiodun as the winner.
Wilcox said when he objected to returning the unpopular candidate as directed, he and another member of the panel, Barrister Moghalu, were removed by the National Chairman of the party, Comrade Oshiomole. Asked whether the primaries scheduled for Wednesday by the panel would hold, Wilcox said if it held at all, it would be “a sham” because the panel had been instructed to return a “favoured candidate”.
There have been speculations in the state that the favoured candidate is Mr Dapo Abiodun, an oil magnate, who lost the senatorial election in Ogun East in 2015 elections but was announced elected as gubernatorial candidate by the panel from Abuja. The state executive of the party had alleged that the members of the panel went incommunicado at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Hotel in Abeokuta, keeping away from the local executives they were to liaise with for the conduct of the exercise in the 236 wards of the state.
Please watch the footage of the interview using the link below