Seven aggrieved Presidential aspirants of the All Progressives Congress have dismissed the names of five aspirants sent to the President for the selection of a consensus candidate for the party.
The aspirants who couldn’t make the list of the five names insisted that they were not consulted before the governors took the decision to forward the five names to the President.
The names forwarded to the President are Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, Kayode Fayemi and Dave Umahi.
The bitter aspirants said after a meeting in Abuja that the move was nothing different from an attempt to sideline aspirants from the South East and South South.
The aggrieved aspirants are: the Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade; former Minister for State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba; former Minister for Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, former Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha and businessman Tein Jack-Rich.
They described the list as a joke taken too far in a joint Statement issued on their behalf by Ogbonnaya Onu.
They stressed that the move was an absurd violation of the directive of the President.
They said that while they are not opposed to the shift of the presidency to the South, they were not consulted.
According to them, the affected aspirants did not act in the interest of the South but are motivated by selfish pursuit.
They called on the citizenry to discountenance the report saying that Northern Governors do not have any moral or constitutional jurisdiction to determine the political fate of the South.
Onu wondered why one an aspirant from the South East which has not produced the President made the list while the South West with 16 years in the Presidency had three and the South South with six years in the Presidency had one.
The statement read: “In the past few hours we have been bombarded with calls and messages from my supporters and concerned Nigerians on a list of five Presidential aspirants submitted to President Buhari to choose from.
“As long as we are concerned no list has been submitted to Mr. President, the move by the governors is considered a joke taken to the extreme with the aim of playing with the intellect of Nigerians particularly us from the South East.
“Mr. President’s directive is very simple, that all Presidential aspirants including those from the North should meet and harmonise inorder to produce a single candidate. As it stands we have not been consulted or attended a meeting where it was agreed that such names be sent to Mr. President.
“In the so-called list out of the five names only one was selected from the South-East and we are talking about fairness and justice to the South. What the Governors have done is a mere picnic in the park. These are the same Governors talking about Equity, justice and fairness yet in a clandestine manner purportedly sidelined the South East.
“In the absence of any harmonised agreement no list has been submitted to Mr. President, what they have done is just nothing but a charade which is bound to fail.
“We also have it on good authority that the majority of these Governors have been promised and also given various forms of gratifications in order to thwart the process in favour of one aspirant and such grand plot will fail woefully.
“Moreso, the party led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu remains the official organ of the party through which decisions taken by stakeholders in the party will be communicated and acted upon, in the absence of that any other move remains null and void.
“We urge all well meaning Nigerians to disregard such information, as we remain in the race hence no consensus agreement has been reached amongst all contestants.
“The names, according to the source, included that of the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti State), Rotimi Amaechi, former Minister of Transportation, and Governor Dave Umahi (Ebonyi State).
“The governors after meeting with the President said they will return to the villa after meeting with the party’s National Working Committee(NWC) and other stakeholders.
“They picked one from South-East, one from South-South and three from South-West geopolitical zones in line with their position that power should shift to the South,”