By Adedotun Ajayi

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The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, has pleaded with aggrieved aspirants who lost out in the just concluded governorship primary of the party in Ondo state not to dwell on the past for the victory of the APC in the general elections.

Ganduje spoke on Thursday in Abuja at a peace meeting with the aggrieved aspirants and the party standard-bearer, Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa.

Apart from the Ondo State Governor and candidate in  the November 16 governorship elections, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, aspirants at the meeting include the senator representing Ondo South Senatorial District, Jimoh Ibrahim; Olusola Oke SAN; former President of Nigerian Medical Association, Prof. Francis Faduyile; a mechanical engineer, Dr Funmilayo Waheed-Adekojo.

Others are Dr Soji Ehinlanwo, Akinfolarin Samuel, Adewale Akinterinwa, Olugbenga Edema, Brig. Gen. Ohunyeye Olamide (retd), Oladiran Iyantan and Engineer Ifeoluwa Oyedele.

Kogi State Governor, Usman Ododo and leader of the Primary Committee had on Tuesday submitted his team’s report at the party secretariat in Akure. However, some aspirants protested against the outcome of the primary and petitions submitted to the Appeal panel.

Ganduje, who stated that the focus of the APC should be how to win the November 16 off-season elections, said he did not call the peace meeting to dwell on what has happened, but on how to make the party chieftains work as a team in the forthcoming polls.

He said: “I have to thank you for honouring our invitation in the shortest time and also considering the emotional distress as a result of the primary conducted in few days.

“The purpose of this dialogue is to appeal, it isn’t to dwell on what has happened or what hasn’t happened; what is correct and not correct.

“If we dwell on that, it will lead to too much analysis leading to paralysis.

“If we dwell on that, there are professors amongst us and members of the learned community, SAN, even Engineers. We, who are less educated, the controversy won’t favour us considering the galaxy of people here.

“Our own is to appeal to you. For those of us insiders, it is our party that is the ruling party in Ondo State and we are managers of our party in Nigeria. So we are an interested party. Our prayer is that our party, your party should be the ruling party in Ondo State. It is already a ruling party, our prayer is that it continues to be a ruling party in Ondo State.

“So, we are here to appeal to you, so that we succeed in maintaining the state as APC state. We are all practitioners, I remember that I once contested and after 16 years, I won. So, I can’t call you losers because you can win tomorrow.”

The meeting later dissolved into a closed-door session.