By Ezeocha Nzeh
Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) reconciliations committee for Ondo State, Hon. Shina Peller, has assured that the committee will work hard to reconcile all aggrieved stakeholders in the state ahead of the October 19 governorship election.
The House of Representatives member representing lseyin/Itesiwaju/Kajola/I Wallowa federal constituency said that the interventions of the Committee had saved implosion in the state party.
The APC Caretaker/ExtraOrdinary National Convention Planning Committee set up the reconciliation committee chaired by the governor of Niger State, Sanni Bello ahead of the governorship primaries in the state.
The Ondo State APC has been engrossed in crisis following the protest by Eleven governorship aspirants who had demanded for a Direct primaries as a mode of selection for the governorship candidate for the party for the October 10 governorship election. The party leadership however adopted the indirect mode, where the incumbent governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu emerged winner
But speaking at the APC National Secretariat, after the committee’s meeting, Peller said that committee’s meeting would stakeholder saved the crisis situation.
“Even from the result of the primary election, you can see that the reconciliation committee has done a very good job.”
On how the committee carried out its job, he said, “When a party is in government, it is normal for such party to have challenges which is the reason we have the challenges among our party’s members in Ondo state which led to the constitution of the reconciliation committee that I am the Secretary.
” Since the commencement of the reconciliation process, we have had several meetings. First, we had stakeholders meeting with the National Assembly members who had been involved in 2019 election to give us an information of what is going on ground and after that we had another meeting to know the stakeholders from Ondo state that will be invited to Abuja in order to have a right information about the issues that caused the rift in Ondo state. This gave us clear sense of direction which led us to travel to Ondo state where we were able to first of us meet with all the aspirants including the incumbent governor.
“As you know if you have about twelve people aspiring to become the candidate of a party in an election, it is possible for some aspirants to share the same idea, that is what led to a lot of people stepping down and coming together to work for the governor.
“I can tell you that the reconciliation committee is focused at the party’s interest and no other person interest but we need to put into consideration some factors that will lead to give us a clear sense of direction and where party direction should go to and I can tell you that our job has not been completed.
“Our job has just entered into another stage where we have to make sure that we ride on the sustainability of the reconciliation that we have done so that we can be able to win in the coming governorship election.”
