The atmosphere at the secretariat of the Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress was tensed on Thursday evening as the Osun State Governorship Electoral Panel from Abuja held a meeting with all the governorship aspirants of the party ahead of the primary election slated to hold on Friday.
The Chairman of the Electoral Panel, Abdulazeez Yari, who is the Governor of Zamfara State, was absent and Senator Ovie Omo-Agege announced to the gathering that he was representing the chairman.
The security arrangement at the secretariat was beefed up as police deployed two armoured personnel carriers with scores of heavily armed policemen on the venue.
Supporters of each of the aspirants engaged each other in shouting a competition as their principals took turns to introduce themselves.
Some of the aspirants are the Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Lasun Yusuff; Speaker, Osun State House of Assembly, Dr Najeem Salam; Senator Babajide Omoworare; Secretary to Osun State Government, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti; Chief of Staff to Osun State Governor, Gboyega Oyetola; Ezekiel Oyemomi; Saka Layonu (SAN); Abdulgafar Amere and Kunle Adegoke ( K.Rad) and others.
Yusuff said the primary would be very tough stressing that the Chief of Staff, Oyetola, whose supporters shouted and booed other aspirants, could not win the main election without the support of others.
Lasun said, “The Chief of Staff cannot win the election alone and nobody can win without the support of others.”
As he said this, supporters of Oyetola, who had been booing him, increased the tempo and started chanting R-APC, R-APC, Saraki boy, before normalcy was restored.
Adekoge, who was the first to ask a question, said it was surprising that there was no guideline to be used for the direct primary and there was no verifiable register of members.
But as he was speaking, supporters of Oyetola started booing him but he remained unperturbed.
The acting Chairman of the Electoral Panel, Omo-Agege, had earlier in his address told the gathering that the panel would ensure that the exercise was credible and transparent.
Omo-Agege said, “We have a single term of reference and it is to conduct a free, fair and credible primary. This is not my word. We are very neutral. We are not here to favour any aspirant; we are not here to impose anybody.”
