Ondo APC women leaders warn Tinubu against imposition

Reports that the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, plans to handpick a candidate for the party ahead of the Ondo governorship election has been greeted with repugnance.
This follows a statement by the women leaders of the APC in the 18 local government councils of Ondo state, in which they warned Tinubu, against imposing a governorship candidate on the party.
In a letter jointly signed by the women leaders on Monday, August 15, the APC said that the preferred choice of Tinubu for the governorship election was not popular, The Punch reports.
The signatories of the letter included Mrs. T. O. Oparinde (Ondo-Central senatorial district); Mrs. Adejoro Lydia (Ondo-North senatorial district); Mrs. E. Y. Akinlaja (Ondo-South senatorial district), among several others.
The reaction of the APC women leaders comes on the heels of an allegation by one of the governorship aspirants of the party, Dr. Tunji Abayomi, who claimed that Tinubu summoned all the party’s leaders, including the chairmen of the party at the local government level to Lagos, where he directed them to ensure that Dr. Segun Abraham emerges as the candidate of the party at the primary.
Dr. Segun Abraham
While affirming their loyalty to the leadership of Tinubu, the women leaders said that the preference of Dr. Segun Abraham by the national leader of the party would spell doom for the APC during the forthcoming poll.
The women advised Tinubu to allow a free and fair governorship primary.
The women said: “Recent rumour in Ondo state about your decision to back one of the aspirants has got us seriously worried. It would have been less worrisome if the particular aspirant has some measure of popularity that can be leveraged upon to win the governorship election.
“Unfortunately, the reverse is the case. The number of those of us that sign this letter shows that our opinion cuts across all the part of the state.”
While calling for an urgent stakeholders’ meeting, the women leaders blamed the turn of event in the countdown to the governorship primary on “some selfish leaders who go to Lagos to feed Asiwaju with lies.”
“We appeal that you urgently convey a stakeholders’ meeting and listen to the genuine views or the Ondo people and not some few selfish individuals that are disconnected from the practical political reality in Ondo by their own selfish agenda. You are the father of all, don’t let them narrow you to a selfish agenda that will make us fail again.”
Meanwhile, Bola Tinubu has hit back at reports that he is planning to impose a candidate on the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the party’s August 27 primary election in Ondo state.
According to Tinubu, he has the right to back whoever he likes to emerge as candidate of the APC in the Ondo state governorship election.
Tinubu said he has always been a democrat and would remain one.