THE South West Agenda for Asiwaju 2023 of the All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State on Thursday, said the consensus arrangement proposed by the National Caretaker Committee of the APC for the congresses would not work in Ekiti State.
SWAGA State Chairman, Senator Tony Adeniyi, in a statement in Ado Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, titled, ‘APC Congresses: Why consensus will not work in Ekiti – Sen. Adeniyi’, said, “The APC in the state is polarized and only a direct primary can bring the party back on a stable foot”.
He alleged that, “The governor and his caucus in the Ekiti APC have solely imposed an electoral body, just as delegates have been handpicked for the congresses without the input of several party stakeholders. The names of the delegates are already compiled with promise by the government to pay for their electoral dues.
“We are not and shall not be part of any unilateral ‘consensus’ arrangement whatsoever. We hereby state categorically that the APC in Ekiti State are fully prepared to go for direct congresses immediately after the registration/revalidation exercise”.
Adeniyi charged the party hierarchy to be painstaking in the conduct of the coming congresses to “forestall the imposition and the plot to disenfranchise some members and as such plunge the party into avoidable electoral turmoil”.
The SWAGA leader alleged that a group under the name ‘Tokan-Tokan,’ to which the governor belonged, “has dominated state affairs since the taking over of Dr Kayode Fayemi and has held down other party members by retaining its grip on their jugular”.
But the APC state Caretaker Publicity Secretary, Ade Ajayi, who dismissed the allegations and the attempt to rope in Fayemi, said the party leadership was not under any pressure to subvert the people’s will as alleged.
Ajayi said, “In our last stakeholders’ meeting, leaders agreed that nobody must be sidelined in the congresses and we can’t afford to disappoint them. But Senator Adeniyi and his people didn’t attend and how would they have known our action plan?”
“The Hon. Paul Omotoso leadership of APC in Ekiti State is firmly on ground and in charge and it is ready to conduct free, fair credible congresses that will be acceptable to all stakeholders.”
