ONE of the leading governorship aspirant of the All Progressive Congress APC in Ondo state, Chief Rotimi Akeredolu (Aketi) yesterday lashed the national leader of the party Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on his endorsement of an aspirant ahead of the Primaries, saying the plan was in pipeline to loot the state treasury as experimented in Ekiti and Osun States under Kayode Fayemi and Rauf Aregbesola.

He pointedly said that ‎with the action of Tinubu he has lost his place as a national leader of the party.

This coming as ‎the National Executive Committee NEC of the Party for second time within a week again postponed the governorship primaries in the state till September 3.

The governorship primaries was initially slated for ‎today but later shifted to Wednesday August 31 before the latest postponement by the NEC of the party.

Akeredolu spoke in Akure during a personality interview tagged ” Heart of the Matter” on Adaba FM station.

‎Speaking during the radio programme monitored, Akeredolu declared that ‎”for the national leader to have endorsed any candidate in our party he has lost the place of National leader of the party.”

He regretted that Tinubu “has never kept his words.”

The aspirants also ‎denied that he was imposed on other aspirants during the 2012 governorship primaries in the state.

According to him  “I was endorsed by God in 2012, not by Tinubu. All stakeholders decided I should be the candidate.”

Meanwhile, the party attributed the changes in the dates to logistic problems but Vanguard gathered that there are more to it than meet the eyes.

Vanguard learnt that a high level politicking was ongoing to douse the tension that had enveloped the party in the last two weeks over the endorsement of Dr Olusegun Abraham by the national leader of the party Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

A source hinted that consultation was ongoing between Tinubu and many of the aspirants on the need to support Abraham to fly the flag of the Party in the November 26 governorship election.

Over 3000 delegates across the 18 council areas of the state are expected to elect one of the 25 aspirants contesting for the position.

Confirming the latest chang‎e in the date of the primaries, the party’s Director of Media and Publicity Steve Otaloro said the new date was at the instance of the NEC of the state.

Otaloro pointed out that the change  “was still part of the logistic problem the party is trying to solve.”

He declined further clarifications.

Meanwhile, the governorship aspirants have expressed mixed feeling over the shift of the primaries.

Speaking through their media aides , the aspirants expressed surprise at the decision which came few days to the election.

While Prof Ajayi Boroffice said ‎the shift came as a surprise, others such as Olusola Oke and Alhaji Jamiu Ekungba said since it was the decision of the NEC, they had no choice.