The Editor Nigeria learnt that members of the Ogun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress loyal to Ex-Governor Ibikunle Amosun, were conspicuously absent as the APC State Congress Appeal Committee concluded its assignment on Wednesday.
Chairman of the appeal panel, Patrick Obahiagbon, announced to reporters that the committee which held public sittings on Tuesday and Wednesday, did not receive any petition from any individual or group.
Obahiagbon who addressed newsmen at the end of the committee’s assignment said, “We have sat for two days now and no person or persons have approached this State Congress Appeal Committee.”
He noted that what was now left for the committee to do was to write a report and forward the same to the APC National Secretariat in Abuja.
This, he said, was “in order to meet the requisite timeline of this assignment.”
Obaihiagbon dismissed allegations that he attended the parallel congress conducted by Amosun’s loyalists at the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abeokuta.
The allegation of his involvement was contained in a video clip of the event by the organizers.
He said, “The video clip to the effect that I was a member of the State Congress Committee, I am not a member of the State Congress Committee and I did not play any role to the buildup of the State Congress Committee and to that extent, therefore, I don’t think that whatever accusations that that video clip throws up or vitiates the moral blanket and the moral template of this Committee.”
Also speaking in his defence, the secretary of the committee, Chuks Chinwuba said, “As regards to this appeal committee of five persons, if for anything, the chairman of this committee was sighted in a congress venue, the APC congress venue and today he is the chairman of the appeal committee does not in any way depreciate what we have done or what we are doing and he is one person out of the five.
In response, the APC chairman of the Amosun faction, Derin Adebiyi, while explaining his faction’s absence from the committee sitting said, “How do you expect us to appear before such a committee? It means we are not serious like them.
“How could somebody, such a shameless person who was part and parcel of their congress, who spoke extensively against us, against what we stand for, praising our opponent, yet just a week after you came out to say you are the Chairman of the Appeal Committee, what do you expect from such a person?
“In fact, it is only God that exposed him and his collaborators because how on earth will such a person even accept that job?”
He also said, “Of course we believe that our own Congress is the authentic one, so anybody who has an appeal can go and appeal. We don’t have any appeal.”
