No fewer than 25,000 members of the ruling All Progressives Congress
(APC) yesterday decamped to Accord Party in Lagos State, stating that
that they were aggrieved at the culture of impunity in the state chapter
of the party which denied Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and many other
aspirants a level playing field for the party’s tickets.
This is
just as the aggrieved APC members immediately adopted governorship
candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Jimi
Agbaje as their preferred candidate for the governorship polls. The
defectors, who came from the state’s 20 local governments at a
well-attended ceremony which took place at Lagos Airport Hotel, cheered
as the candidate of Accord Party, Engineer Joseph Ola Beckley said he
was standing down for Agbaje in the governorship election.
Witnesses
to the carnivallike ceremony included Agbaje, his running mate, Mrs.
Haleemat Oluwayemisi Busari, recently defected former Lagos State
Commissioner for Power, Mr. Wale Oluwo, a former Lagos State
Commissioner for Housing, Alhaji Rahman Owokoniran and the PDP Lagos
Chairman, Dr. Adegbola Dominic.
The defectors, who described
themselves as “Aggrieved Members of the APC” were led by a chieftain of
the party, Mr. Sunday Ajayi. Ajayi said they decided to dump APC for
Accord Party due to widespread impunity perpetrated by the leadership of
APC. Addressing a crowd of faithful, including chieftains of the PDP
and the Accord Party, Ajayi stated “we, the leaders of the Aggrieved
APC, have decided to bid byebye to the APC over the reign of impunity
being carried out by the party in the state.” Ajayi accused the National
Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of committing gross
impunity against membership through imposition of candidates on the APC,
saying, the era of one-man rule in the state had gone.
He said:
“Until now, we were members of the APC; but today we have decided to
dump the party with our teeming members, numbering about 25,000 from
across all the local government areas of Lagos State,” he said, adding,
“The reason for the defection of our members is not farfetched. We are
all living witnesses to how the APC conducted its primaries to pick its
candidate. You will agree with me that the process was far from being
free and fair to all members of the party.
You can imagine the
treatment that they gave our amiable Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode.What
happened to the Governor is rather unprecedented. It has never happened
before that a sitting Governor would be prevented from getting a second
term. “When the people asked, the excuse they gave was that although
the man worked, he didn’t do well as a party man. The question now is:
Was Ambode not a party man before they picked him as the party’s
candidate in 2015? We are tired of this high level of impunity in the
APC and we have opted to leave the party for them.”
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