Following the endorsement of Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa by some elders of the Ondo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, ahead of the primaries of the party, some governorship aspirants have described the development as deceitful and caricature.
The aspirants who carpeted the elders under the aegis of APC Aborigines stated that they lacked the authority to screen and adopt any of the 14 governorship hopefuls.
Speaking on the development, Wale Akinterinwa, who described the action as shameful, maintained that the endorsement was a deceit that would not last.
The spokesperson of the Akinterinwa Campaign Organisation, Segun Ajiboye, stressed that the elders had always been in the camp of Aiyedatiwa.
“Both Ambassador Sola Iji and Senator Ajayi Boroffice were conspicuously present when Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa declared his intention to contest the election,” he said.
On his part, the spokesman of the Olusola Oke Campaign, Ojo Oyewamide, said: “This endorsement is a caricature of what an endorsement ought to be.
“The people have always been known supporters of Aiyedatiwa, and they attended the open declaration of the governor in Akure recently.”
The elders had earlier endorsed and recommended Aiyedatiwa to be picked as the party’s candidate in the forthcoming governorship election.
According to Sola Iji, the leader of the group, who was the former Ambassador to Togo, after a meeting in Akure, the state capital, the decision to back Aiyedatiwa was due to his strides in the state within a short period of becoming the governor.
Iji maintained that the choice of Aiyedatiwa was arrived at following the evaluation and screening of the aspirants done by a nine-man committee, which in its report presented the late Paul Akintelure, Akinterinwa, and Aiyedatiwa as the top three aspirants.
In the report, Aiyedatiwa was said to have scored 777 points, while the late Akintelure garnered 612 points and Akinterinwa scored 587 points.