Hours after Saturday’s local government of the All Progressives Congress (APC), crisis pointing to mistrust is rocking the committee which conducted the congress for Oyo state.
This came to the fore on Monday with a statement quoting Secretary of the committee, Abdulazeez Usman and other members that Chairman of the committee, Hilary Amodu had absconded with the congress results.
In the statement, the Secretary and members of the committee alleged that the committee Chairman left his hotel at Jericho, Ibadan on Sunday at about 12 noon and was yet to be seen or could not be reached on phone.
The committee members alleged that Mr Amodu left all the members at Jericho Apartments, Jericho, Ibadan on the claim that he wanted to see a friend in the city and that he would return to the hotel shortly, but failed to return, as of Monday.
The committee members said they suspected foul play because the Chairman bluntly refused to drop the already submitted results for 29 local government areas when he was asked to.
The statement read: “We have not seen or heard from him since. He did not come back to the hotel where all of us are lodged and our repeated calls to his lines were not answered.
“We suspect a foul play that the Chairman is working to compromise the congress.
“We have reported the matter to our party headquarters with a request for fresh elections results.
“We want to assure our party members in Oyo State not to worry or express any fear over the development as no manipulation whatsoever can be done to the results.
“Our party is a much organized and disciplined party and the process of the congress as putting in place by the Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) cannot be falsified or compromised in any way.”
However, the Committee Chairman, Hilary Amodu, while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, denied absconding with the result.
Amodu said he had to leave his hotel for Abuja owing to his sighting strange movements around the hotel as well as hint that some persons were hellbent on storming the hotel to tamper with the results.
As of the time of leaving Ibadan for Abuja, Amodu said the results of 32 local government areas except for that of Kajola local government area was already submitted to the committee.
He however said he was to call his Secretary and members to be in Abuja to fine-tune the result especially in those local government areas where more than one result was submitted.
Asked if Abdulazeez Usman was the same committee Secretary he worked with, Amodu said he worked with another Secretary, Taofik Abdussalam that was later sent to him by National Secretariat of the party.
Amodu however said he and committee members were set to start writing their report for submission while the National Secretariat of the party will harmonise all issues relating to the congress.
“I am in Abuja, I need to start writing the congress report. Everybody agreed on consensus and they all submitted to the committee.
“How can I absond? What happened is that all of a sudden while in my hotel, I started seeing strange movements and they gave me hint that thugs were going to invade where I am.
” They said they came to my hotel to submit results and I said results are submitted at the party secretariat.
“I was not comfortable and needed to take cover first.
“I also had another issue of having two Secretaries but I said this will be sorted by the National Secretariat of the party.
“My plan is to call my Secretary and members and we should meet in Abuja to fine-tune and start writing the results in the result sheets.
“I could not do it in Ibadan due to strange movements.
“It is important for me to state here categorically that I, as the Chairman of the Committee, was not in Oyo state to do the bidding of any individual gladiator or group and I do not know of any member of the Committee who showed interest in any of the members or chieftains of Oyo APC as far as the conduct of the Congress was concerned.
“I can say it unequivocally that we were in the state as unbiased umpires. Our mandate was to be fair to all parties involved and also ensure strict adherence to the Guidelines earlier released for the exercise by the CECPC.”
“I only left for Abuja to meet up with the deadline set for my Committee by the National Secretariat of our Party regarding the submission of Congress Results and Reports.
“I want to assure all members of the APC in Oyo state that only the results of the Congress produced at the designated venues on Saturday will be submitted to the National Secretariat of our great Party for necessary authorisation while it is only the leadership of the CECPC that has the power to announce it to the public afterwards.”
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