Council Polls: 100 Yagba West APC Youths reject imposition of candidates
“Back Ogbe Ward for Chairmanship Ticket
All is not well wih the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Yagba West Local Government as youths in the party have vowed to resist imposition of chairmanship and councillorship candidates ahead of the December 12, 2020 Local Government elections in Kogi State.
The development is coming amidst suspected moves by some party leaders to simply write names of their preferred aspirants for submission to the party secretariat to forward to Kogi State Independent Electoral Commission (KOSIEC), without any inputs from the stakeholders.
The youths in a joint statement signed by 100 aggrieved members of the APC in Yagba West fingered three former council helmsman who they accused of pursuing selfish agenda through misrepresenting Governor Yahaya Bello.
It was stated in parts, “The Governor was quoted to be opposed to primaries and any form of consensus, including shadow primaries. We were told that is the reason he directed the party to make available just a nomination form for each ward despite that in some wards we have as many as eight aspirants who have submission expression of intent letters to the various excos of their wards. As it is now, we do not know what to believe since the party is yet to come out with official guidelines and modalities for selection of candidates”.
The protesting youths noted that while it was favourably disposed to consensus, the processes of arriving at consensus must be all inclusive and transparent.
They welcomed the adoption of shadow primaries as was being successfully held across the state, alleging plot by the former council helmsmen to frustrate shadow primaries in majority of the wards in Yagba West, especially in Egbe (Town Council).
Meanwhile, the youths have called on all well meaning leaders of the APC in Yagba West and at state level to consider zoning the chairmanship ticket of the party in the local government to Ogbe Ward.
This was hinged on the reality that from inception of democratic practice, beginning from old Oyi LGA in old Kwara State, only Ogbe Ward has not produced a caretaker, vice-chairman or elected chairman of the local government.
“Whereas, Ogbe ward has delivered well above 70 percent to the APC in all elections held in 2019 across board, including the November 16, 2019 election of our leader, His Excellency Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello this record cannot be matched by any other electoral ward in Yagba West”, the statement added.
Spokesman of the group, Abayomi David Asehinde who spoke with our correspondent challenged the leadership of the party at the state level to make public the party’s guidelines for the selection of candidates for the local government election. He also appealed for Governor Yahaya Bello’s intervention by calling the erring party leaders to order in the overall interest of the party going further and beyond the forthcoming local government election.