Ondo primaries: Ganduje in crucial peace meeting with aggrieved APC aspirants

By Jude Opara, Abuja

The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Thursday at the National Secretariat of the party promised to continue to dialogue with aspirants who participated in the recently conducted Ondo state governorship primary election.
Briefing the media after the protracted peace meeting, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Duro Meseko who was alongside the chairman Ondo state chapter, Ade Adetimehin and two aspirants said 15 out of the 16 aspirants said the dialogue is going to be continuous.
Meseko said, “It was agreed that the meeting because of the outcome of the primaries, because of complaints that trailed outcome on the primaries by some of the aspirants, there is the need for the party to continue dialogue with all the aspirants individually and collectively in order to be able to have a common ground for the forthcoming election in the state to be able to work together as a united family.
“It was also agreed that the State Governor should immediately work towards instituting what is called all inclusive government in the state by involving all the other aspirants, of course most of the aspirants will not be able to participate in his government but they have people that will participate, should allow them to make inputs, he should work with them in order to be able to move the state forward.”
The deputy publicly secretary also said the decision to have an all inclusive governance must commence immediately without any further delay so as to place the party in a vantage position to win the November 16 governorship election.
Also in his clarifications, the state chairman of the party, Chief Ade Adetimehin reaffirmed that the national secretariat will continue to broker peace by continuing to dialogue with all the aspirants and other members of the party to ensure that the party goes into the election as a united party.
“As said by the DNPS, after two hours of deliberations, we agreed on the two points. We agreed that the all inclusive governance must commence immediately. Ondo is APC state. We won all the Senate seats, eight out of mine House of Representatives and 22 out of 26 state house of assembly members.
“Only Isaac Kekemeke, member of NWC who was also an aspirant was absent with permission that he had a function earlier scheduled before the meeting. It I not a situation of shunning the meeting because he called to inform our national chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje that he would not be available for the meeting. So, our deliberations are fruitful with almost all the aspirants including our Governor in attendance.”
Earlier in his welcome address, the National Chairman of the APC, Dr. Abdulahi Ganduje while thanking the aspirants for honouring the invitation said they have demonstrated that they truly are statesmen who have the required leadership skills.
Ganduje said the purpose of the dialogue was to appeal to them to accept the outcome of the primaries and work together for the victory of the party in the election.
“The purpose of this dialogue, this meeting is to appeal. The purpose is not to dwell on what has happened, what has not happen, what is correct, what is not correct. If we dwell on that then it will lead to what we call; ‘too much analysis leads to paralysis. If we are to dwell on that, there are professors, amongst us, lawyers, some are engineers, even the gender is being accommodated”.
He equally advised those who lost at the primary election to be patient because they can also make it to the government house if God so wills.