By: Oluwatosin Adesola
…..Rejects Consensus primary.
Ahead of the 2024 governorship election in Ondo State, United Kingdom trained Engineer, Adeolu Akinwunmi, was on Friday given a massive reception from Akure Airport to the party’s State Secretariat at Alagbaka Akure, during his return from Abuja where he had gone to obtain his Nomination Form and Expression of Interest form of the the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
Hundreds of his supporters from across the 18 local government areas of the state had stormed the Airport and the Secretariat to express the massive support for Akinwumi popularly known as ‘OYA’, who is now the first among several PDP Aspirants to obtain the nomination form which cost N35million.
He had September joined the gubernatorial race when he told journalists in Akure of how he is planning to transform Ondo State if given the opportunity to become the State Governor during the party’s primary in April and governorship election in November this year.
Akinwunmi said so on Friday in Akure, the state capital, when he picked up the party’s nomination form as the first aspirant to declared his interest to run for the state governorship election under the PDP.
He pointed out that PDP is a party with constitution whose rules and guidelines must be followed when it comes to selecting the flagbearer of the party.
Addressing party’s faithful at the state Secretariat in Akure, the Governorship Hopeful maintained his stands that he is not a party to the adoption of consensus mode of primary in the party.
Akinwunmi said, “the word consensus itself means agreeable to by all, for the fact that I have gone ahead to pick the nomination form does not shut the window of any other person picking the form, if I am part of the consensus arrangement, I won’t be picking the form, I would have waited for the eventual outcome of the party’s (arrangement).
“I have made it very clear right from day one that I would not be a party to any consensus adoption because the party constitution is very clear, PDP is a party that has well documented guidelines and its a party that is govern by Constitution.
“It is the Constitution of the party that detect the mode of primary, the party guidelines stipulate that it is going to be an indirect form of primary election which means that we are going to have congresses to elect delegates that will eventually vote and determine who the party candidate will be.”
Akinwunmi, an Okitipupa local government area-born PDP Bigwig, also revealed that the party National Working Committee, NWC, had stated that there is no official position on the issue of zoning and that every Aspirant is free to obtain nomination form.
“We had a stakeholders meeting with the National Working Committee and they made it clear that on the issue of zoning, no official position has been taken so far and that everyone is free to pick the form which I have done, if they decide to zone it out, the national committee that gave me the form won’t have given me, that tells you that there is nothing like zoning,” he said.
The Aspirant however advised the leaders of the party to be fair to all aspirants and give all aspirants a platform to contest fairly and justly.
Speaking on the party being able to defeat the ruling ApC in the upcoming governorship election, the State Acting Chairman of the PDP, Tola Alabere, vowed that his party would defeat the APC as Ondo State people are waiting to support PDP in the election.
Alabere also advised that people should do away with the idea of voting for candidates mainly because they are from same place and should stop collecting money during election if they want to see positive changes in the state.
“It is time for PDP to take over, prayers alone is not enough, we must work, the idea of collecting money during election should be stopped if we want things to change for better” he said.
