The national leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Wednesday described Governors Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara and Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun  states as bad losers.

The APC said the governors sought to circumvent the democratic process in order to project their interests by plotting to remove Comrade Adams Oshiomhole as the National Chairman of the party.

Amosun and Yari’s candidates were also excluded from the list submitted by the national leadership of the party to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Speaking during an interactive session with correspondents in Abuja, the Acting National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu decried the allegations against Oshiomhole and the national leadership as a fallout of the failure of some of the governors and chieftains to have their way in the party.

“It is a straight forward case. If we speak to the merit of this case, the whole world saw it, the visuals were everywhere, where the Ogun State governor gathered some aspirants, stakeholders and said clearly, there won’t be primaries and right there he pointed at who the next governorship, senatorial, and House of Representatives candidates would be.

“He named himself the next senatorial candidate. Even if they have accepted those people, it is against the procedure, especially for a governor to openly say a thing like that.

“It was clearly stated the party gave two options which is the direct and indirect primaries and you are to have stakeholders’ meetings where majority will decide.

“In the case of Ogun, after that exercise failed, after they tried to hand-pick who will be what, they sent a letter that they have agreed on direct primary and the party has no choice than to endorse what they want.

“On the day they all came for screening including the governor. He suddenly left with other aspirants and returned to Abeokuta, gathered some people and sent back to the NWC that they wanted indirect primary and the other aspirants said we were all here together, that they didn’t know when this change was made.

“Meanwhile, someone had gone to court and the court had barred the state executive from anything to do with the party but we all saw on national television where the Governor and the state executive actually conducted their own primary and the process threw up the governor’s preferred candidate.

“It was the SSG in Ogun State, who was reading the result until it occurred to him that he had no power to announce the names. So he handed over to the state chairman of the party who also shouldn’t have done that – he is statutorily barred, the court had told him not to participate in the primary.

“Secondly, the state chairman has no power to conduct primary; that power resides with the NWC. So whatever the governor did was self-help and there is no provision for self-help in the party’s constitution.

“Eventually the NWC panel constituted to conduct the primary went to Abeokuta and did the primary. The governor’s preferred candidate chose not to participate in that exercise.

“So the party stands by the result of that primary it conducted in Ogun State. The governor has done his best to get validation for his self-help. That is not possible. The first thing he did was to start saying things that made it look like something wrong has happened when nothing of such has happened.

“Secondly, he took some monarchs to meet the president. I am surprised because someone like him, with due respect, should have understood the nature of the President we have; that no matter how close you are to him, he will listen to you but he will ask for the rules to be followed.

“So, the next thing we had, he was looking for whom to blame and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Chief Segun Osoba readily came to his mind and he blamed them for that.

“The question to ask is whether they were the ones who gave directives to him to organize his own primaries or were they the ones who instructed him not to participate in the primaries or his candidate not to participate in primaries the party organized.

Justifying the party’s action in initially giving Senator Shehu Sani a return ticket to contest the Kaduna Central Senatorial seat, Issa-Onilu said: “It was the outcome of the primary, properly conducted.

“The party tried to protect its members in the National Assembly for obvious reasons, following what has been going on at the National Assembly. We know the carrots that had been dangled at them.

“We have a responsibility to ensure that we have a grip on the legislative arm of government so that we can run a smooth government. The initial effort of the party did not get the blessing of other people in that area who are also entitled to bid for positions.

“The primaries were eventually conducted, Senator Shehu Sani opted out, he relied on the earlier decision. At the end of the day, no matter what plan you have, even though you are acting on expediency, rule of law, democracy will prevail. It was democracy that prevailed in Kaduna.

On the situation in Zamfara State, he continued:  “We submitted list of candidates for legislative elections in Zamfara State. If INEC did not take it, it is a different thing. We have a right to submit and INEC has the legal responsibility to receive.

“INEC cannot disqualify candidates, we all know that. We have said clearly that whatever claims INEC is making is neither correct nor a true representation of what happened and we will continue to take progressive steps to ensure that INEC does what is right.”