By JANE IYI OROBOSA

There is palpable disquiet in the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the September 21 governorship election in the state, investigation has shown.

It was learnt that many chieftains of the party are disgruntled over the unmarketability of the candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo, and with their whispers of discontent arrogantly rebuffed by party leaders both in the state and Abuja, a groundswell of anti-party has now replaced the grumblings in a show of defiance.

It was gathered that others, who are courageous enough and have very little patience with what our source described as “leadership conspiracy,” have recently launched public attacks on the party or even dumped the party altogether.

According to our source who pleaded anonymity, the remaining days in June and July will witness more defections and possibly more open rejection of Okpebholo, particularly by his Esan brothers and sisters.

“The thing going on in APC now is unbelievable. Everybody is just angry. The question is how did the party candidate manage to emerge? He is the worst of the candidates in the election. People did not know how he managed to emerge or how the leaders did it. Now people are finding it difficult to market him. Bad products are difficult to sell. And when they complain, the leaders will say Party is supreme, party is supreme. How can the party be supreme when you have Asue (Dr Asue Ighodalo of Peoples Democratic Party) or Olu-Dee (Olumide Akpata of Labour Party) to contest with?

“So that is what is going on. Everybody is just angry now. But because the party leaders will not allow them to talk, they have now formed numerous groups and caucuses and they are doing anti-party. They’re very many. The man is not qualified to even be a local government chairman.

“The biggest challenge to APC is coming from Esan land. Our people are insisting that after giving Edo people two Professors, Prof Ambrose Alli and Prof Osunbor, they cannot afford to give Edo people a welder. That is the issue now. They seem to be saying the man will disgrace Esan people. Unfortunately, it is too late to do anything about it. So, what they are doing is answering APC by day and fully doing PDP or LP at night. But not everybody has that time. They simply defect and tell the world what is going on like Chief Inegbeniki, Chief Ghadaffi, Alhaji Isiwele, Dan Ogbegie, even the young Turks like John Mayaki and Saint Moses and Chris Osa. The list is endless and this June. By July I don’t know what is going to happen,” the source confided in our reporter.

The source further alluded to the near irreconcilable differences among top leaders of the party. He said they are “barely tolerating themselves, but deep down, there is big resentment and animosity within the party leadership hierarchy, I tell you. One is in Abuja and the other one is in Benin here and they have their followers beefing themselves,” he concluded.