The Executive Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki reveals that the National Working Committee of All Progressives Congress has no power in deciding the way and manner in which the party governorship primary in Edo State will be conducted.
The primary has been fixed to take place next month with the governorship poll slated for September.
The APC NWC led by Adams Oshiomhole has ordered direct primary.
Obaseki has been entangled in a heavy battle with Oshiomhole over the domination of the party in Edo State.
While speaking through his Special Adviser on Media and Strategy, Crusoe Osagie, yesterday, the governor said the NWC could not take any decisions on how the primary should hold without the National Executive Committee of the party.
Obaseki said: “That report was a scoop, there was no meeting of the NWC in which the decision was taken. If the Oshiomhole camp is having it at the back of their minds that it is what they want to do, they don’t have the power to do that.
“The power to direct what kind of primary to do rests on NEC and NEC at the last meeting decided that because of the dissenting voices, all modes of primary should be decided by the different state chapters as it was done in Kogi and Bayelsa. In Kogi, for example, they determined the kind of primary they wanted, and in Bayelsa, the same thing happened.
“So, in Edo, the same method will be adopted, according to the rules of NEC. We will now write the NWC to say this is the mode of primary that we want.”
Osagie also said that the statement from the party’s senior member of the party and former governor of Edo State (Chief John Odigie-Oyegun) had confirmed that President Muhammadu Buhari had adopted Obaseki and Akeredolu as the respective governorship candidates for Edo and Ondo State.
