The second runner-up of the All Progressives Congress, APC gubernatorial aspirant in the controversial primary in Ondo State, Olusola Oke has finally defected from the party to the Alliance For Democracy, after weeks of speculations.
The Alliance for Democracy is the pioneer party that produced the national leader of the ruling All progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as Lagos State governor in 1999. Tinubu later dumped the party for Action Congress, AC, and later Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and the of course, the current All Progressives Congress, APC.
Olusola Oke, aggrieved by the conduct of the national Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, yesterday joined the Alliance for Democracy(AD).
Oke, had polled 576 votes after the September 3 gubernatorial primaries, said he dumped the party because of the action of its National chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun.
Oyegun overruled the decision of the National Working Committee (NWC) that called for fresh primary following irregularities detected by the Appeal Committee that probed the post-primary crisis.
Addressing crowd of supporters at his Ijapo estate residence, Oke said since the leadership of the party had failed to do justice to the irregularities, he decided to dump APC to realise his aspiration under the AD.
Oke, who was the former National Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), described APC as a good party but lamented it had been hijacked by some cabals.
According to him, it was illogical and wrong for Oyegun to jettison the verdict of the majority members of the NWC when it was cleared the shadow election was allegedly manipulated in favour of the governorship candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu(SAN).
Oke noted that many APC stakeholders including National Leader of the party Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had condemned the NWC, calling for the cancellation of the exercise which was not addressed.
The legal practitioner assured his supporters that by God’s grace, he would actualise his dream on the platform of the AD.
Sources hinted that the National leadership of the AD had formally written to the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) for replacement of its candidate for the coming governorship election in Ondo State.
The AD asked that the name of the party’s candidate Dr Akin Olowookere be substituted with that of Chief Oke for the governorship election.
The party had already persuaded Olowookere to make way for Oke, following intervention of some prominent founding fathers of the party.
Olowookere, it was gathered, has agreed to the arrangements and will become an integral part of Oke team.
Oke is expected to be joined in the AD by some aggrieved governorship aspirants from the APC, including Senator Ajayi Boroffice.
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