Ondo ACN candidates Unite for Akeredolu

Members of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Ondo state have closed ranks to ensure that the party’s candidate, Barrister Rotimi Akeredolu wins the 20 October, 2012 governorship election in the state.

This was one of the resolutions reached at the end of a one day stakeholders’ meeting packaged by the Oranmiyan Sunshine Forum, a group within the ACN in Akure at the weekend with over a thousand of representatives from all the wards in Ondo state in attendance.

Reading out the agreements reached by representatives from the 18 local governments in the state, founder and facilitator of Oranmiyan Sunshine Forum, Bola Ilori said a MOPOL 18 was also formed to support the party and facilitate quick delivery, well packaged and strategically coordinated campaign for Barrister Akeredolu and the party in its bid to claim the Alagbaka Government House, Akure.

According to various suggestions and resolution of the meeting, MOPOL 18, meaning “Mobile Politicians” will be an independent support mechanism for the party’s electioneering campaign coordination for each of the 18 local government areas which would for a start have one MOPOL in each of the 203 wards in the state.

Their duties and functions will include ensuring that necessary information are passed on to the party secretariat on time while needed requisition that will aid the success of the party are passed to necessary quarters adequately.

This crop of smart and mobile politicians would be aided to carry out SWOT analysis of the party’s chances in each polling booth ahead of the elections.

Praising the gathering Ilori said “you have made wonderful suggestions here today contrary to the view of some detractors that the party is bereft of ideas or that we don’t have viable structure or that the party is not united.”

They are also to monitor all proceedings in their localities on the day of election and other sundry duties that will ensure success.

“The MOPOL 18 s’ big-brother ACN,” Ilori assured.

Ilori, who was the Action Congress Senatorial candidate in Ondo central in the 2007 general elections, announced his readiness to facilitate the operation of “MOPOL 18″ in all ramifications, saying he will ensure they lacked nothing that may hinder their assigned duties.

The ACN stalwart debunked the insinuation in some quarters that the party is suffering from crisis following the choice of its candidate as he stressed that nothing could be farther from the truth.

He said there has not been any defection from the party since the choice was made, saying it was the opposition who had expected a big fallout that are orchestrating the lie that the ACN is in crisis.

According to Ilori who is the Special Adviser to Osun Governor on Environment and Sanitation, as at the moment, close to ninety-percent of the aspirants have closed ranks and resolved to work for the party’s candidate while some of the aspirants were already calling the meetings of their groups for proper information and instructions on the latest development and the need to close ranks and work to ensure ACN’s success at the October 20 polls.

Ilori also told the gathering that it was not true that the choice of candidate was done without input from the party members in Ondo state, disclosing that the decision was made by aggregation of different opinions expressed by members directly or indirectly and gathered by the leadership of the party who made the choice.

The Chairman of the organising Committee of the stakeholders’ meeting, Mr. Niyi Mogaji, a party leader from Akoko in Ondo North, said the choice of Barrister Akeredolu was as result of the criteria set by the party men and the people through their various comments and that of all the aspirants with first rate credentials, Akeredolu seems to be the best, thus his recommendation by the leadership of the party in Ondo state.

“It’s just a lesson for us to be circumspect in our harsh criticism of ourselves, we were just counter-assassinating the characters of our aspirants and our leaders were taking note,” Magaji said.

Responding, Ilori noted that “What happened in ACN is not strange. ACN did full blown primaries in 2007 and we got our fingers burnt, that was a lesson for us. This time around all our aspirants are eminently qualified to be governor and that showed the vibrancy of our party. Kindly tell me the venue or date of the primaries that produced Dr Mimiko as the candidate of Labour Party, in fact Labour Party is a party of Mimiko by Mimiko and for Mimiko. Ondo PDP too did not even have primaries in any practical sense.”

The six local government council chairmen of the party who were all in attendance announced that they had set up a committee to reach out to the remaining two of the over 20 aspirants in Ondo North Senatorial District that are yet to endorse the party’s peace pact to do so speedily in the interest of the party.

The chairman of Chairmen in Ondo Central CAN, Mr Akintunde Temitope, said: “we praise the two aspirants that despite their dissatisfaction with the emergence of the party’s candidate, they all still opted to remain in the party contrary to speculation and overtures from other political camps”.

The immediate past chairman of ACN in Ondo North Senatorial District, Alhaji Ibrahim Oluruntoba assured the party men that their requests that the candidate should commence visitations to all wards, that the party leadership should speedily make available working tools and materials for the election and the need for the party not to forsake the original “ACN aborigine” members and leaders will be passed on to the party leadership.

Commenting during the forum, the state Treasurer of ACN and the Deputy Director General Engr. Ade Adetimehin reiterated the need for solid unity within the party hierarchy to ensure unity to bring about winning the governorship seat of Ondo state in the coming election.

Adetimehin also admonished other party leaders in Ondo state to emulate the selfless commitment of Ilori, who despite not contesting, has remained the biggest non-contesting facilitator of party programmes and agenda in the state in the last few years.