The Coalition of United Political Parties may have concluded arrangements to field a joint candidate in the Osun State governorship election, scheduled for September 22, 2018, The Point has learnt.
The CUPP comprises the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, the African Democratic Congress, and 37 other political parties.
The move, it was gathered, is being initiated by some stakeholders, who feel that if this is done, the coalition will be on a sound footing to defeat the standard bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress at the poll.
If this is done, CUPP’ll be on a sound footing to defeat APC at the poll
It was gathered that some stalwarts of the coalition, while reviewing the recently conducted Ekiti governorship election, won by Dr. Kayode Fayemi of the APC with a margin of less than 20,000 votes, felt that fielding a single candidate by the parties in the coalition would ensure their victory in the Osun
election.
The coalition, it was learnt, felt that if it had put forward a joint candidate in Ekiti and campaigned together for such a candidate, it would have defeated the APC
candidate.
It was further gathered that various parties in the coalition would be allowed to conduct their primaries, after which all the candidates would undergo screening. Whoever emerges from the screening, according to sources, will then fly his party’s flag on behalf of the coalition.
Towards this end, our correspondent gathered that a screening committee would soon be set up to screen candidates that would emerge through the various parties’ primaries.
A source hinted that the PDP chieftains in the coalition were the ones leading this move, adding that they also believed it would be a rehearsal for the coalition’s efforts at fielding a joint presidential candidate against President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling APC in 2019.
When contacted, a former Minister of Education and chieftain of the Social Democratic Party, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, said he was not aware of such a move by the coalition for the Osun
election.
“I am not aware of such a move. I am just hearing that from you. But if all the parties agreed on that, I should be in the know,” Adeniran
said.
Efforts to get the reaction of the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, proved abortive as he did not pick his calls. Also, text messages sent to his phone were not replied.
