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Ex-SSG faults delegates’ list, rejects Ebonyi primary

By Charles Otu, Abakaliki
03 October 2018   |   3:50 am
A frontline governorship aspirant and former secretary to the State Government for Ebonyi State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), Professor Bernard Ifeanyi Odoh has vehemently rejected the results of the primary election as a big fraud. Odoh, who briefed journalists in Abakaliki, cited the use of fictitious delegates’ list in the conduct of the…

[FILE PHOTO] Election

A frontline governorship aspirant and former secretary to the State Government for Ebonyi State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), Professor Bernard Ifeanyi Odoh has vehemently rejected the results of the primary election as a big fraud.

Odoh, who briefed journalists in Abakaliki, cited the use of fictitious delegates’ list in the conduct of the exercise, which he said debarred the authentic delegates access to vote in the election.

He listed the affected local councils to include Ikwo and Ezza South Councils respectively, questioning the electoral committee’s decision to allow the fraudulently substituted delegates in both councils to be used for the primaries.

The aspirant stressed that the committee, led by Senator Domingo Obende, did not act in the best interest of both the internal and external democracies, which the party relies upon to produce popular, credible and reasonably acceptable candidates to fly its flag in elections.

Odoh said: “I want to state here and now that I reject the results of the APC primaries in Ebonyi.

And I want to list the reasons for rejecting the outcome to include that the delegates’ list for Ikwo and Ezza South Local Councils were inconsistent with the documents the party presented in our office here in Ebonyi when the committee arrived.

“Therefore, we cannot allow the party to use that to choose the Party’s flag-bearer. Also, I hadn’t access to the delegates they used in the conduct of that election. They were delegates that were, ab initio, not part of what was signed in the congress of May, this year.

“The chairman of that committee, Nicholas Ajayi, called me this morning stating that he had registered his petition against that document to the national secretariat of our party to the effect that the said document was not the same with the one he signed in May, this year.”

The former SSG maintained that if the outcome of the exercise was allowed to stand, it would become a subject of litigation, stressing, “If we further allow that to stand, it will become a matter that would further challenge and complicate our party’s processes.

So, I reject the result on the basis of these irregularities”, adding that as a law-abiding person who loves to respect procedures, he has commenced the process of appealing the outcome before the Appeal Panel.”

He continued: “Our document will get there (to the appeal committee) tomorrow morning. If the process is fair and credible, I will accept the outcome. But given what happened yesterday, I don’t accept the outcome and I know a few of other aspirants who are in the race may also follow suit.” 

He added that the difference of 266 votes, which Senator Ogbuoji polled to emerge winner, was garnered from the areas where the authentic delegates’ list was illegally substituted, alleging further that the signature of the May congress committee Chairman, Ajayi, was fraudulently scanned into the forged document.

The aspirant claimed that the state had been thrown into ‘mourning’ instead of joy since the official announcement of the result, noting: “While reaffirming our belief in ideal democratic principles as enshrined in our party and the Nigerian constitutions, particularly the APC guidelines for electing the party’s candidates, we sincerely urge our supporters to remain calm, firm and resolute as the exercise of yesterday is ONLY but a mileage to our actual destination in our struggle to inspire hope on all Ebonyians as we have scrupulously articulated in our manifesto!

“What is ahead of us would always be far greater than what is behind us! The outcome is not an end in itself, but only a beginning to the actualization of our vision for a new dawn for Ebonyi State.”

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