The crisis within the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), took a different dimension when the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Comrade Timi Frank, challenged the National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, to publish the original minutes of the meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) where the reports of Ondo Primary Appeal Panel was jettisoned.
The APC spokesman also faulted the statements credited to Chief John Oyegun against the party’s National Leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, asking the chairman why it took him two weeks to respond.
In a statement he signed in Abuja on Sunday, the APC chieftain said the current crisis has gotten to a stage where the National Chairman must publish the original minutes of the meeting if he does not have anything to hide.
“Unknown to the National Chairman the last two NWC meetings were properly recorded and the record shows the contributions of each and every members of the NWC present the meetings.”
“Chief Oyegun should tell the world why he brushed aside the suggestion of the National Youth Leader Hon. Dasuki Jalo who suggested that the party should submit an interim name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pending the time a political solution will be find to the matter. But Oyegun and few others who benefitted from the corruption that produced Rotimi Akeredolu as governorship candidate of our party did not see wisdom in what the national youth leader said.”
“Chief Oyegun’s few responses to the many of allegations raised by our leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu can never hold water. For example, the chairman and his cohort contradicted themselves when Oyegun said there was no voting at all but he forgot that the National Vice Chairman Hilliard Eta, told newsmen that there was voting, which is in agreement with the position of the party’s South-west National Vice Chairman Chief Pius Akinyelure, who also said that the NWC members actually voted on the Ondo State Governorship Appeal Panel Report.”
Oyegun had said in his statement: “Also, voting on the issue became unnecessary and never took place in view of the NWC’s rejection of the Appeal Committee’s report.”
On his part, the South-south vice chairman Hilliard Eta had told newsmen that: “Before we met on the last day for the submission of name to INEC, we had met three days earlier, in that meeting, there were two reports before the NWC, that of the appeal committee was voted on. That very day, we were fourteen in number, not eleven as we have it in the media.”
“After that, we mandated our National Chairman and Secretary to go out and do wider consultations so that we can have a political solution to the heated environment the situation has caused the party.”
“But it is not to late. Our national leader Tinubu has spoken that Oyegun should step aside, and that is the opinion of larger percentage of leaders and members of APC. It is expected of our National Chairman to do the needful before the evidences of many evils done to the party will be made public.
According to the APC chieftain, all lovers of APC should disregard Chief Oyegun’s recent defense statement because the true position of what transpired at the NWC meeting had been truly revealed by the National Vice Chairman (South-west) Chief Pius Akinyelure.