The crisis in the Ondo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has taken a turn for the worse as prominent chieftains of the party have dumped Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa and declared support for the candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP), Benson Akingboye.
The Coordinator of the group, Dele Oyewo, made this known in a petition titled: ‘Protest against Governor Aiyedatiwa and the party approach,’ which was addressed to APC national chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje.
The group said its decision was due to the “questionable” emergence of Aiyedatiwa as the candidate of the party at the primaries conducted in April 2024.
It added: “The leadership of the various organising groups within the party structure in the state for the umpteenth time hereby re-emphasise that it is going to be almost impossible to work with the party and the governor in the November 16 gubernatorial election.
“But we discovered that the party leadership in Abuja is not in any way concerned about the wellbeing of citizens of Ondo State, rather they prefer their own choice of settlement over any form of resulting consequences.
“The voices of people in Ondo State-an appendages of the APC hereby condemn what it described as derailment and gross misconduct against the party ethics in line with the choice of Governor Aiyedatiwa if truly we are different from PDP and that we do to the latter what we preached before the 2015 general election.
“We, the major APC groups in Ondo State have decided to pick Otunba Benson Akingboye of the Social Democratic party as our choice.
“However silent mobilisation has been ongoing but we decided this time to inform our party because of the myriad of “I don’t care attitude” that the APC leadership in Abuja have been displaying to matters like this that concern the youth of Ondo State long before.”
“We cannot continue to die in silence and showcase total loyalty to the destiny wasters in our state. Otunba Benson Akingboye is more or less an APC family whose track and philosophy are similar to that of our dear President Tinubu.
“We are monitoring all the activities very closely from all quarters. We pray that in a bid to favour Governor Aiyedatiwa, some people will not set Ondo State on fire.
“Meanwhile, what would eventually remove Governor Aiyedatiwa from office is already cooking even when he is forcefully declared as the winner of the election. We have told our people not to waste their precious votes!”