By Ezeocha Nzeh
All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship aspirant, Chris Ogiemwonyi disclosed Wednesday that the agreement reached by all aspirants from the APC faction loyal to the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole to have a consensus aspirants could no longer stand following alleged betrayal by Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu.
Ize Iyamu, stated while picking his nomination form for the APC governorship primary last week that he emerged the groups consensus aspirant, noting that the other interested members of their group have stepped down for him
He also noted that all the group members, which included Ogiemwonyi, General Charles Aghiavbarie, former Deputy governor, Pius Odubu and others jointly contributed money to purchase the governorship nomination form, stressing that he was in the race as representative of the team
But Ogiemwonyi said yesterday, when he returned his completed nomination form for the June 22 APC governorship primary that they decided to join in the race after what he described as betrayal by Ize-Iyamu.
“We started with consensus candidate because we believed that in unity we can remove the current Governor. However when there were some indications that the consensus candidate or aspirant was inviting another person to join the race, I decided to join because I was number two in the screening process we did. We were seven that took part in that process last week and we were graded. He was the first person, I was number two but when we got the call that the number one person was inviting another person outside the seven aspirants that went for the interview, I told him that was unfair to me. If at all somebody become, I should be the one because I was number two.
The aspirant, who expressed his support for direct primary process to pick the party’s candidate insisted that that would be the only method that would guarantee transparency, free and fair primary
He regretted that he lost the ticket in 2016, because the party adopted indirect method, adding that every delegate then followed the directives of the then governor, Adams Oshiomhole, who he noted did not hide his support for the current governor
“I am a socialist, I am a deomocrat. I saw what indirect did to me in 2016. I nurtured the so called delegates for 9 months. I was giving soft loans. The shock I had was ‘Governor said it was Obaseki”. Obaseki wasn’t a player in 2016. It was between myself and Odubu.
“They couldn’t vote for me because of the body language of the Governor. Godwin did not campaign Oshiomhole gave him so much gratitude but he has shown him alot of ingratitude to Oshiomhole. He got that job without sweat. But I believe with this direct primaries now people will have their way. Don’t use government apparatus to suppress one person.”
