Clement Adeyi, Osogbo
A group, under the aegis of Development Advocacy Group (DAG), in collaboration with Coalition of Osun Youth Organisation (COYO), on Tuesday, staged a peaceful protest against the ongoing clamour to zone the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship ticket to the Osun West Senatorial District.
The protesters trooped out in their hundreds with placards bearing various inscriptions and marched from the popular Ayetoro Road through Olaiya to the party’s secretariat along Gbongan/Ibadan Road.
Some of the inscriptions on the placards read: ‘Evaluate merit not sentiment’, ‘Good governance is about merit and not zoning,’ ‘Don’t divide us, we stand on merit,’ among others.
Some members of the party (APC) and its loyalists had been agitating for zoning the governorship ticket for the September 22 election to the Osun West but the protesters insisted that the clamour was selfish, sentimental, emotional, anti-people and against democratic and development ethos.
Spokesman for the group, Dr. Ademola Oyedokun, while addressing newsmen at the party’s secretariat, said election of governor in the state should be based on merit irrespective of where he comes from, insisting that competence and merit should not be sacrificed on the altar of zoning.
He stressed that the agitation for zoning was not in the interest of the common man in the state but to satisfy the political yearnings of the elite that are agitating for it.
“The ordinary man is concerned with a decent life and not the region that produces the governor. Poverty, hunger, illiteracy and insecurity do not know any zone or region and that is why we are against it,” Oyedokun noted.
“What we want is the best and wherever that best will come from is a welcome development to us,” he added.
“We do not want a situation whereby we will promote mediocrity at the expense of competency.
He maintained that the youths would ensure that whoever emerged the candidate of any political party in the state must be competent and ready to continue the good work that Governor Rauf Aregbesola had started.
Oyedokun urged the party leadership to provide a level-playing ground for all the aspirants to be able to have a people’s choice.