Uche Secondus
• Adeyeye flays Fayose’s adoption of deputy as successor• 27 APC members eye gov seat
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus, has promised to conduct open primaries in future elections.He spoke in Ado Ekiti, during an official visit to present party flags to chairmanship and councillorship candidates, ahead of tomorrow’s local government election.According to Secondus, the desire of the new leadership is to return power to the members at the grassroots.
This, he, said would be done to allow them to determine and elect their representatives without hindrance.Secondus explained that open primaries would precede every election, including those of the governorship, the Senate and House of Representatives.He promised that henceforth, once well-televised open primaries had been done, the party would not entertain protests from aggrieved party members.
The chairman commended Governor Ayo Fayose for constructing meaningful projects across the state.He asked the residents to compensate him by voting for the party’s candidates in the council polls and in the upcoming governorship election.Secondus urged those interested in running for elective offices not to lose hope, but participate in such primaries, if they are sure of their popularity and ability to deliver.
Fayose promised to deliver the 177 wards and 16 local councils in the state to the party.He expressed the hope that the volume of his administration’s development in the areas would earn the party the people’s votes in the council poll, as well as in the governorship election in July next year.
On the governorship poll, the immediate past Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Dayo Adeyeye, condemned Governor Ayodele Fayose’s adoption of his deputy, Prof Kolapo Olusola, as the party’s candidate in the election.While restating his readiness to run for the office, he said the PDP might lose out in the race, if it presents another candidate.
Adeyeye, who said Olusola’s adoption, was antithetical to democratic norms, said he remains the most experienced aspirant in the state, with enormous acceptability to defeat the All Progressives Congress (APC).He said nobody has the moral justification to unilaterally impose a candidate on the party or decides who becomes a governor in the state.
Meanwhile, about 27 members of the APC have indicated their interest in the governorship race.The APC Deputy Chairman, Mrs. Kemisola Olaleye, disclosed this yesterday in Ado-Ekiti, when one of them, Debo Ranti Ajayi, visited the party’s secretariat.Olaleye promised the APC’s readiness to conduct credible, transparent, free and fair primaries for all the aspirants.
She explained that the party would in February; paste the list of eligible delegates for the selection of candidates.She stressed that the APC has no favourite candidate, as all the aspirants are “children of the same family.”
According to her, Ajayi has the pedigree to be governor of the state, based on his antecedents in the private and public sectors.The APC has however, disclosed that it would not participate in the council election across the state.In a statement by the Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, the party said it is boycotting the election because of what it described as a “misnomer, undemocratic and compromised election from the beginning.”
