…accuses Oshiomhole of making mockery of democracy
Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki has said he will not appeal his disqualification from the All Progressives Congress primary election by the party’s screening committee on Friday.
Obaseki, who is seeking re-election as Edo governor, was disqualified by the APC screening committee for having “defective” HSC and NYSC certificates.
The governor said in a statement by his media aide, Crusoe Osagie, that it would be futile to appeal the outcome.
He said this is so because the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, had “declared that he is the supreme court and ultimate determiner of the fate and future of our great party.
“We have watched the mockery of democratic process, which Adams Oshiomhole, is administering and superintending over in our great party the All Progressives Congress (APC). It has been an unfortunate, disheartening and dreadful spectacle,” the statement read.
“We had initially asserted that going by the open display and enthronement of illegality by one man in the party that comprises several organs and eminent personalities, there is no way that Governor Godwin Obaseki would get a fair assessment in the run-up to the nomination of candidates to fly the flag of the party in the forthcoming Edo gubernatorial election.
“It is unfortunate that this open show of shame, illegality and travesty of justice is the brand of democracy which Oshiomhole has reduced the APC into.
“The situation is quite saddening because this is a party supposedly reputed for change, equity and social justice.”
But at the screening process, held in Abuja on Friday, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who was the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2015 election, was cleared alongside four other candidates.