From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has declared that the ruling party will win the forthcoming November Ondo State governorship election.
The national leadership of the party equally assured the 16 aspirants that purchased the expression of interest and nomination forms that it will organise a transparent primary to credibly elect the party’s candidate.
APC Deputy National Organising Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, gave the assurance at the party’s secretariat in Abuja to mark the end of the submission of the nomination forms by the 16 aspirants.
His words: “The last is for us to assure you that the party is interested and desirous of conducting a free, fair, transparent primaries in Ondo State.
“And that for us is the only guarantee that at the end of the exercise out of the 16 we are aware only one will emerge and the rest can extend hands of felicitation and fellowship to whosever emerge as we did in Edo State.
“Edo has become test case, they know that the party is resolute in determining through a process that is free who the candidate of the party would be. The few who felt they would need to go to court as we would always expect, up till now, have done 360 degree turnaround.
“They came to the negotiations table, had a handshake and now we have a very formidable team, and we believe that APC would win Edo State. And if we trust that APC will win Edo, we also have confidence that APC will win Ondo state,” Duru noted.
He specifically commended the last aspirant to submit the nomination forms, Ifeoluwa Oyedele, for supporting so much for the party especially in sacrificing his personal ambition of contesting for the position of National Secretary.
“And being the last day of closure of submission of forms, the next exercise would then be the screening exercise that would take place on the 11th and 12th of this month and after that would then be the primary proper.
“I am happy to inform you that given the way we have run this Secretariat, directorate, we would shortly advice all the aspirants that latest on Monday we will be basketing into which each of the aspirants will fall in, so they don’t need to come and wait endlessly.
“We would basket them into groups, we would have done it today, but because of the different views of when the holidays would fall, but the confidence is that by Monday the government would have release the date for the Salah holiday.
“So that we don’t release a list that, we come back and reverse, but bear in mind that latest on Monday you will know the slot into which you fall.
“We know before now of your contribution to the party, if I remember correctly not too sure, there was an indication of your name gunning across board for APC chairmanship, which you then step down and let go for peace,” Duru said.