The Tijani Tumsa–led screening committee of the APC had at the weekend disclosed the disqualification of one of the 12 governorship aspirants of the party for this year’s governorship election in Ondo State.
The panel, however, refused to disclose the name of the disqualified aspirants, hence confusion has enveloped the aspirants and their supporters. But, yesterday, a reliable source on the panel told newsmen that Abraham was the aspirant disqualified over his failure to present his university certificate.
“We did not disclose his name because there is a provision for him to appeal the outcome of our screening. It would be the appeal committee that will take the final decision on this,” the source said, pleading not to be named.
He noted that the disqualification of Abraham had nothing to do with the leader of the party, insisting that it was purely based on aspirant’s certificate issue.
“He presented his secondary school certificate but he told us that his university certificate was abroad and it was on that ground that he was disqualified,” the source added.
The party has scheduled its primary election for July 20, with indirect primary mode adopted for the exercise.
It would be recalled that in 2016, Abraham, the then preferred candidate of Tinubu was defeated by Governor Rotimi Akeredolu.
The support of the presidency gave Akeredolu an edge over Abraham. Akeredolu polled 669 votes to defeat Abraham who garnered 635.
Since then, the relationship between Akeredolu and Tinubu has been far from smooth.
The 2016 Ondo governorship primary, according to party sources was one of the factors which fuelled the APC crisis during the tenure of pioneer chairman of the party, Chief Odigie Oyegun.
Abraham was unavailable for comment last night but at the weekend, he told one of our correspondents that his disqualification was a rumour.
“Like everyone, I also heard about the rumour. We even heard about someone being disqualified, but it is still a rumour. It is not clear yet. We’ll find out the situation soon,” he said.
(Daily Trust)
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