Following the kangaroo adoption of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Publicity Secretary, Akeem Olatunji as the consensus candidate for Oluyole Federal House of Representatives in the 2023 election, other aspirants who are jostling for the same ticket have debunked the report, describing it as unfounded.
The aspirants, who are jostling for the House of Representatives and House of Assembly tickets, in a press conference held at Mount Pleasant Event Center, Podo, Ibadan, dispelled the report, stating that there was no consensus agreement among the aspirants.
Speaking on behalf of the aspirants, Hon. Bolu Adebayo, said that the caucus meeting held on Sunday with some leaders of the party was as a follow-up to the directive of the state governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde, who had instructed the leaders to hold caucus meeting on modalities to adopt in the process of picking the candidates for the 2023 general election.
He disclosed that the aspirants did not agree on consensus candidate, therefore, resolved that all aspirants should go for primary elections.
According to him, “we believed so much in the leadership of the party, so based on the meeting the governor had with leaders of the party across the 33 local governments of the state, the leaders in Oluyole called us for a meeting to see the possibility of a consensus candidate which is very good for our democracy, but the problem is that both for the House of Representatives and House of Assembly in Oluyole Local Government, there was no consensus candidate as far as we know because we did not agreed among ourselves to pick one person as consensus candidate at the end of the meeting.
“This morning, some news making the rounds that some aspirants have been picked as consensus candidates to represent Oluyole both in the House of Representatives and House of Assembly which is against what we agreed upon on Sunday meeting, that is why we deem it fit to organize the press conference as aspirants, to dispel the rumour and reveal what transpired at the caucus meeting with some leaders in the local government.
“So, what we stand on is that there were no consensus candidates in Oluyole both for federal House of Representatives and the state House of Assembly and that, if there is any news filtering all around social media or conventional media and what a view, as aspirants we are not aware of it, we still believed in the leadership of our leaders because we believed in the principle of our great party, be that as it may, as aspirants, our resolution is that we should go for primaries as a reflection of true democracy because the power belongs to the people and we believe people should be given the chance to decide who they want to represent them at various levels, we believed in the leadership at the national, state and local levels even up to the ward level, we are not against the leadership but we don’t want someone else to be misinformed about the situation in Oluyole Local Government that there have been a consensus candidates, no consensus that have been agreed by the aspirants and we have not been informed officially of any other thing apart from what they told us on Sunday caucus meeting that we should go home, and since that yesterday till this time of press conference on Monday no aspirant has been informed of what is going on but here news filtering all around the places that some candidates have been picked as consensus candidates.
“We here to say that so far, there was no consensus agrees upon by the aspirants, so far all the aspirants have agreed to go for primaries,” Hon. Bolu Adebayo said.
Some of the aspirants for the House of Representatives in attendance include Hon. Benbow Olapade, Hon. John Ogunsola, Hon. Tokunbo Ogunsola, Hon. Olawale Mogbonjubola and Hon. Bolu Adebayo, while the aspirants for the House of Assembly are Hon. Dikko Salami, Hon. Moruf Adebayo, Hon. Bolaji Femi Bamigbola, Hon. Olawale Olatunbosun, Hon. Taofeek Ogunrinde, Hon. Kola Oladokun, Kolawole Bosun and Kemi Obabanseri.
