2019 Polls: Disunity Within APC Made Buhari Lost in Ondo, Says Ex-APC Chairman
….We were firing the cylinder from too many directions.
….. when you win an election, you don’t begin to revenge.
Former Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ondo state, Isaac Kekemeke has revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari lost the presidential election in the state because of members of the party we not united.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Vanguard, Kekemek, who is a former Minority Leader of Ondo State House of Assembly said although they all want Buhari to win, alleged that some highly placed people in the party engaged in anti-party activities.
“If the truth must be said as I think we should, we lost in that election because we were firing the cylinder from too many directions.
“All of us wanted President Buhari to win but we were disunited. There was no central command and rallying point as was the case in 2015. As for the National Assembly elections, it was clear that some highly placed people in the party engaged in anti-party activities by raising and supporting candidates in another party (AA).
“So while we were united about President Buhari winning the election, we disagreed and were not united on the various Senate or House of Representative seats in a number of constituencies particularly in about six of the constituencies and we lost.”
Kekemeke who blamed the governor for creating the challenge within the party, adding that instead of uniting the party members, he was taking revenge.
“If you were to be the governor, what would you have done differently? The biggest challenge was created by the governor himself. I have respect for his person but my view has always been that when you win an election, you don’t begin to revenge.
You take no revenge once you have won. What to do is to bring everybody together; you no longer have a team of your own and everybody in the party becomes yours. Even beyond that, everybody in the state should be yours. I believe the governor was not and is still not magnanimous in victory.
“If I were to be the governor, that’s what I would have done. This is exactly what I did when I became the Chairman of the party. I brought everybody together as it didn’t matter whether you liked me or not. For example, when I won the chairmanship seat in the 2014 state congress, the governor didn’t support me but I went to Ibadan twice to see him and to solicit his support for my administration. That is the way to go.
