A new controversy is brewing within the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) over the replacement of its governorship candidate on Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) portal.
This is just as the party leadership in the state threatened to drag the party to Court over the replacement of the party’s candidate by Barrister Gbenga Edema.
Speaking to newsmen in Akure, Ondo State capital, on Friday, the Acting National Secretary of the party, Comrade Ogini Olaposi Sunday, said the replacement of the candidate that emerged at the governorship primary of the party by the Kwankwaso’s followers was unacceptable to the party.
According to him, he explained that Senator Kwankwaso had been expelled from the party and lacked the locus to replace the party’s governorship candidate with another person.
Declaring another governorship candidate for the party in Akure, the Acting National Secretary of the party, Olaposi Sunday Ogini said the party’s leadership has dragged INEC to court for accepting the replacement of the party’s governorship candidate, Gbenga Edema, presented by Kwankwaso’s loyalists.
He described Kwankwaso’s loyalists as fake members of the party, declaring that Kwankwaso had ceased to be a member of NNPP.
Reading the resolutions of the party, Ogini said: “Engineer Akintan Michael is the governorship candidate of the party, while Chief Mrs. Kemi Fasua is the deputy governorship candidate of the party.
“The leadership of NNPP in the Southwest secured the consent of the founder of NNPP, Dr. Boniface Okechukwu Aniebonam to file a suit at the Federal High Court, Akure to compel INEC to update the name of Engr. Akintan Michael and Chief Mrs. Kemi Fasua as the governorship and deputy governorship candidates of the party for the November 16 governorship election in Ondo State.
“The national leadership of NNPP shall also pursue to a logical conclusion another suit filed at the Ondo State High Court, Akure against Mr. Gbenga Edema who was illegally nominated and fielded by the illegal Kwankwasian group of expelled Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso against the constitution of Federal Republic and Electoral Act.
“Gbenga Edema was never a member of NNPP and the best we know of him is that he is a bonafide member of All Progressives Congress (APC) and also a governorship aspirant in APC. Therefore, it is for any lawless group to make him a candidate for a constitutional political party like NNPP.
“The Southwest leaders hereby agreed with the National leadership of NNPP that Mr. Gbenga Edema is unknown to the party and therefore declared persona non grata in our party.”
Edema, a barrister at Law, was on Wednesday, June 5, 2024, declared NNPP’s governorship candidate following the withdrawal of Oluwatosin Ayeni, the governorship placeholder of NNPP, from the race.
The State Chairman of NNPP, Mr. Peter Olagookun, said that Ayeni willingly withdrew his candidacy to give way for a better candidacy of the party.
Edema, having dumped his former party, All Progressives Congress (APC), was unveiled at the NNPP’s special meeting held in which he was ratified as the governorship candidate of the party in Akure, Ondo State capital.
Edema’s name has since been listed on INEC’s portal as the candidate of NNPP in the forthcoming off-circle gubernatorial election in Ondo.
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