The national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has warned its former chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and the state chapter of the party that they lack the authority to vet and clear aspirants contesting the forthcoming Edo State governorship election.
Oshiomhole, in collaboration with many stakeholders in the state, has constituted a committee to trim and streamline the number of aspirants for the governorship poll, reducing the number to a manageable size of six.
However, dismissing the arrangement, the national leadership emphasized that the responsibility of vetting and clearing the aspirants on the platform of the party solely rests on the shoulders of the National Working Committee (NWC).
The Deputy National Organizing Secretary, Nze Chidi Duru, who made the clarification while formally presenting the expression of interest and nomination forms to one of the aspirants, maintained that the leadership of the party was not ready to abdicate its responsibility to anybody.
While promising that the leadership would ensure and guarantee free, fair and transparent primary, Duru said that the NWC was committed to ensuring the emergence of a candidate to win the election for the party.
“On behalf of the National Chairman, I want to thank the aspirant for first nursing the ambition which is very important under our party in the forthcoming election in Edo State.
“He has also asked me to inform all the aspirants that the responsibility of vetting and clearing all the aspirants lies with the NWC of our party and the leadership has not abandoned that responsibility.
“Therefore, the exercise of vetting and clearing will only happen, in the first instance, through a committee that will be set up, and we are in the process of setting up the committee.
We will ensure and guarantee free, fair and transparent primary. What we want is the person who will win for us. The person who will win the primary and win the election ultimately for the party.
“We want Edo State in the basket of the APC states and that is very important. We cannot just have one lone voice in the South-South, which Cross Rivers currently represents.
“Once we can have Edo State in the basket, hopefully, we can also translate into another state in Ondo. That is the message from the National Chairman, and everything will be fully communicated to the party in Edo State,” he said.