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| Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo |
The aggrieved members of the All Progressives Congress in Ondo State have called on the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, to fulfill the promise he made to them before the general elections.
The 206 members of the APC under the auspices of the Ondo APC Aggrieved Aspirants, were aspirants in the House of Representatives and House of Assembly elections in 2018. They were allegedly denied party tickets following the alleged imposition of candidates by the National Working Committee of the party.
It was gathered that 108 of the aspirants approached the Federal High Court to challenge the action of the party but the Vice President reportedly met with them and appealed to them to withdraw the case and promised to compensate them after the general elections.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, by a former Speaker of the Ondo State House of Assembly, Mr. Kenneth Olawale, on behalf of the aggrieved aspirants, they said the case was withdrawn in honour of Osinbajo but after the election, he (Osinbajo) was yet to fulfill his promise.
The aggrieved aspirants, in the statement, accused the VP and the national leadership of the party of abandoning them after achieving their goals in Ondo State.
The statement reads partly, โA meeting was held in Akure, presided over by Prof. Yemi Osinbanjo and attended by some national leaders of the party with the aggrieved aspirants that went to court. It was agreed upon, that the pre-election suit pending in the Federal High Court be withdrawn while the VP urged the aggrieved aspirants to work for the partyโs victory with a promise to compensate them.
โConsequently, the case was withdrawn and the aggrieved aspirants worked assiduously for the party in the state. We expect the team led by the VP to fulfill its part of the agreement, which included but not limited to compensations in lieu of costs incurred by these aspirants in the buildup to the primary election that was never allowed to take place in the state.
โBut we were surprised that the leadership of the party has not deemed it fit to allow further communications between us and them since we fulfilled our own part of the agreement inspite of several letters we wrote to the appropriate authorities.โ
The statement called on the Vice President and the national leadership of the party not to abandon the aggrieved aspirants in the interest of the party, urging the presidency to address the matter.
