How disqualification announcement made South-East APC presidential aspirants abandon ‘consensus’ meeting

The disqualification of ten presidential aspirants of the All Progressive Congress, APC, has destablised the closed-door meeting of the South-East aspirants planned to decide on a consensus candidate for the region.

KEMI FILANI NEWS had reported that Chairman of the screening committee, John Odigie-Oyegun, announced the disqualification of 10 aspirants on Friday when he submitted the much-awaited report of the exercise to the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, at the party secretariat.

Oyegun, however, failed to reveal the names of the disqualified 10 aspirants, who didn’t make the list.

According to PUNCH, the shocking report disrupted the closed-door meeting of the Igbo aspirants, which just like their South West counterpart, have been meeting to influence the APC into zoning the ticket to their region.

In attendance were embattled former Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba; former Imo State Governor, Senator Rochas Okorocha; the only APC female in the race, Mrs Uju Ken-Ohanenye; former Senate Speaker, Ken Nnamani; former Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu; Ikeobasi Moleku and Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi.

Although their last meeting took place at the at the Maitama home of Okorocha days before he was raided by operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the venue of the current roundtable was not disclosed.

The aforementioned publication reported that a source had earlier said that just as the South-West leaders, the Igbo aspirants have resolved to consider throwing their weight behind one of their own ahead of the APC convention.

The source also disclosed that all the presidential hopefuls in the South East were equally meeting almost on daily basis.

The only Female in the race, Ohaneye, who also confirmed the report in a phone chat, disclosed that they could no longer carry on with the consensus talk after they read the screening report in the news, PUNCH reports.

“No, we could not continue the meeting because of the breaking news. We heard about the new list talking about some disqualified aspirants. Whatever we have to do, we first need to find out who and who have been disqualified,” she said.