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SOME All Progressives Congress, APC, aspirants for the Edo State House of Assembly, yesterday, protested the directive of the leadership of the party that they should step down their ambition for automatic tickets for 15 members elected under the party’s platform in 2019 out of which 14 of them were not inaugurated while the 15th who was inaugurated has been reportedly frustrated because he refused to defect to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, when Godwin Obaseki left the APC with the remaining nine inaugurated members. The lawmakers have become popularly called G-14.

State chairman of the APC, Col David Imuse (retd) had weekend after the meeting of the Executive Committee of the party officially announced that the 15 lawmakers would be given the right of first refusal.

But the aspirants, who were at the premises of the state Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, insisted that the blanket ticket for them was wrong as some of them were already aspiring for other positions like the House of Representatives, while some of them got other appointments and others have lost touch with their people.

One of the aspirants, Victoria Amu from Owan West constituency, said: “We were invited to the APC secretariat where the chairman read out his riot act to all aspirants, especially those of us whose 14 members did not go into the House of Assembly. They failed to give us the statistics of the 14 that are still contesting, instead they hid them under a blanket coverage.

“For me in Owan West, one of the 14 is in London right now, he really does not care. He used to tell us all in the local government that London was closer to him than Sabongida-Ora. He didn’t come for this meeting yet, they want to give him the ticket.”

When contacted, chairman of the party, said the decision was a “party decision and as party members, they should abide by it. It is just like the same way aspirants during our national convention were prevailed upon to step down for our new national chairman.”