Youths of the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), under the aegis of Progressive Youth Leagues (PYL), have slammed the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, for betraying their confidence on him.
A statement yesterday by their spokesman Adeleke Abdulhakeem accused the APC chairman of fooling Nigerians with his response to the statement by the APC National Leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The statement reads: “Last Friday (October 7), the National Chairman of APC, Pa. Oyegun, responded to the allegations levelled against him by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. But, sadly after about a fortnight, Pa. Oyegun could not come up with clear, detailed and cogent statements or even accept the fact that he made a grievous mistake. He tried to refute those allegations with his well articulated ‘facts’ but in a truthful sense what he called ‘the facts’ are actually the fallacies.
“Perusing Pa. Oyegun’s response to the allegations levelled against him by Asiwaju, a lot of fabricated and specious statements were uncovered and these have successfully aroused questions that only Pa. Oyegun can entertain.
“Pa Oyegun claimed that he did not use prayer interlude to secretly excuse himself from the National Working Committee (NWC) meeting for the purpose of submitting Rotimi Akeredolu’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the fact is he left the meeting after he vetoed the Appeal Committee’s recommendation. Come to think of it: the primaries took place on September 3. Why did the party wait till September 19 before holding the meeting that ended on September 22, the last day for the submission of the party’s candidate?
“Pa Oyegun even brushed aside brilliant suggestion by the National Youth Leader, Dasuki Jalo, that the party should submit an interim name to INEC, pending the time a political solution would be found to the matter. This singular suggestion by the National Youth Leader would have saved the party from the crisis it is experiencing.
“Pa Oyegun fallaciously said: ‘Voting on the issue became unnecessary and never took place in view of the NWC’s rejection of the Appeal Committee’s report.’ But the Southsouth Vice Chairman Eta Hilliard has relayed the true picture of what transpired in the Ondo primaries by saying in a report: ‘(At) that meeting, there were two reports before the NWC: that of the Appeal Committee was voted on.’
“That Pa. Oyegun claimed that there was no voting during the NWC meeting is a blatant fallacy, because the last two NWC meetings were clearly recorded and the record shows the contributions of each and every member of the NWC present at the meetings.
“The Southwest National Chairman, Chief Pius Akinyelure, also confirmed the statement by Hilliard that the NWC actually voted. The well orchestrated lies by Pa. Oyegun, in a bid to redeem his personality that has been defamed with a lot of anti-party actions and in actions and gross misconducts in the Ondo APC primaries, cannot hold water because we are not fools. That will fall for every cooked-up cheap fallacies.”