By  Dayo Johnson
AKURE—INDICATION emerged yesterday that the Nigerian High Commissioner to Australia, Professor Olu Agbi, might have been disqualified for the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the Ondo Central Senatorial election slated for tomorrow.

He has however threatened to drag the party to court if he was disqualified by the appeal panel which he said had no locus to axe him from participating in tomorrow’s primaries.,

This came as the primaries of the party across the state at the time of this report were peaceful.

Vanguard gathered from the party secretariat that the Ambassador’s disqualification by the appeal panel set up by the national secretariat was hinged on his alleged failure to resign his appointment as a diplomat as stipulated by the party’s guideline.

Party source said the disqualification was based on a petitioned forwarded to the screening committee over his failure to resign according to the guidelines of the party which gave seven days before the primaries.

A copy of the petition written by one A.Y. Bola from ward 9 of Ondo west local government area, alleged that Agbi did not resign as stipulated by the party guidelines.

The appeal panel was said to have inquired from Agbi the veracity of the claim but he said he had resigned his appointment since September 5, 2010.

The news of the disqualification of Agbi who was a former Secretary to the State Government went round the state capital like wild fire.

But when contacted, Agbi argued that he was not disqualified by the panel as at yesterday as there was no formal letter to that effect.

Agbi pointed out that he was screened on December 31, 2010 and cleared after which he was issued a certificate of clearance by the screening committee.

According to him “On January 1, I got a petition from Ondo and the petition claimed that I had not resigned in accordance with the guideline of PDP, the petition was even wrong as it was addressed to the screening committee instead of the appeal panel.

But I told the panel that I had written a letter of resignation since September 5, 2010 to the Ministry of External Affairs and the panel raised objection that the letter was not stamped and acknowledged.

But I think because they have a conspiracy to play out, they don’t know what to do with the petition, even if I had not resigned, the panel is not competent to disqualify me, the party can only advise me to resign. You cannot just disqualify me because I am not a small boy in the party, I have not done anything wrong or criminal and I am prepared to take the party to court if it goes ahead with the disqualification”.

Efforts to speak with the leadership of the Party in the state were abortive as its Publicity Secretary Chief Adeyemi Adedipe could not be reached for comment.