Osun 2018: Group protests against clamour for zoning in Osogbo

AGAINST the build-up to September 22 gubernatorial poll in Osun, members of a pressure group identified as Development Advocacy Group (DAG), on Tuesday in Osogbo, the state capital staged a counter-protest against agitation for zoning the governorship ticket to Osun West Senatorial District.

It would be recalled that a group, in the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) under the auspices of Osun Continuity Movement, had last Friday carried out a peaceful demonstration, calling on the party’s leadership to allow an aspirant from Osun West emerge as its flag bearer for the poll.

However, DAG described the agitation as inimical to the social and economic growth of the state, contending that competence and eligibility of individuals, aspiring to govern Osun should not be subjected to needless agitation for zoning.

The protesters, numbering over 1,000 displaying placards with various inscriptions denouncing zoning had converged on a roundabout at Ayetoro, in Osogbo as early as 9.00 am and moved to the popular Olaiya junction before they terminated the protest at the frontage of APC secretariat at Ogo Oluwa area.

Addressing journalists, the spokesperson of DAG, Dr Wasiu Ademola Oyedokun-Alli maintained that “zoning or no zoning is not a convention and has never dictated political direction, hence more reason people must understand that zoning is petty and shenanigan and only for the benefit of politically desperate elites at the expense of the masses”.

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According to him, “zoning as being construed, has no precedent or basis in any of our laws or any political party’s constitution in Nigeria. The closest to it is the principle of Federal Character enshrined in Section 14(3) of the 1999 constitution”.

Oyedokun-Alli added that “assuming without conceding that appease to moral is the ground for this self-serving zoning agitation, then it stands logic in the head if it’s now that some people just woke up to know that a zone in the state deserves a free governorship ticket of a party. The ordinary man is concerned with living a decent life and not the region that produces the governor. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy and insecurity do not know any zone or region”.