Leadnaija
A governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, Johnbosco Onunkwo on Saturday expressed his readiness to support any consensus candidate the leadership of the APC chooses ahead of the November 8 governorship election in Anambra State.
Onunkwo made the pledge at the party national secretariat in Abuja after submitting his nomination and expression of interest forms.
He was reacting to a statement credited to the National Chairman of the APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, that the ruling party would prefer to have a consensus candidate.
The Anambra politician, however, argued that he deserved to be given the party ticket, being the most experienced of all the aspirants, having served as a former local government chairman and chairman of the state chapter of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria.
He said, “Once there is a consensus, we won’t see any problem again. I also advocate for consensus, if they are clear. This is the third time I am running for the primaries of this election and to me, this is the first time I am anticipating a free and fair election.
“If we can go with one voice and common front, we will win that election. So I advocate for consensus. If the party will agree. But if the party says we should go for an election, we need to do a direct primaries because whoever wins the election in a direct primary show he is popular in the party.
“Whether anybody likes it or not, there are crises and factions in APC Anambra. The majority of our members are not happy because they feel relegated. But if they are allowed to team up with the current members of the party who feel okay to do what we call direct primaries, we will have a clean and sellable candidate.”
