As the All Progressives Congress (APC) returns to Edo state on Thursday to continue with the now controversial governorship primaries election, there are very clear indications that the hand of the National Working Committee (NWC) was forced to cancel the exercise which had produced three candidates all claiming to have won the primary election…….CONTINUE READING>>>>>>
Investigations by our reporter has revealed that an alleged bribe of N1.25 million dollars given to some members of the NWC by two of the aspirants who purchased the nomination forms for the primary actually forced the party to cancel the exercise and order another primary.
Our impeccable source who pleaded anonymity revealed that one of the aspirants gave out the sum of $250,000 dollars to which was shared by four people with each of them getting $75,000 while the other one apparently very rich increased the sum to a staggering $1million dollars allegedly collected by some aides of the affected party chieftains on their behalf.
However, trouble was said to have started when after the controversial exercise chaired by the governor of Imo state, Sen. Hope Uzodinma produced three candidates including; Hon. Dennis Idahosa and Sen. Monday Okpebholo, the aspirants who brought the money threatened to petition the presidency.
The aggrieved aspirants also alleged that the exercise was not conducted in line with the Constitution of the party and that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was not present where the chairman of the primary election announced Idahosa as the winner.
The source further revealed that the national chairman of the APC, Dr. Abdulahi Ganduje relied on two arguments to cancel the election. He said that Ganduje accepted that there was a case of over-voting because while Idahosa won with over 40,000 votes, his opponents claimed that only 23,000 people were accredited to vote. The second premise is that Governor Uzodinma did not announce the result at the designated venue for the collation.
“While we all know that the issue of membership is something that is continuous, it is the duty of the state chapter to disclose their membership strength. On the issue of venue, everybody saw that thugs attacked and destroyed the venue of the collation and that left the committee no other option than to relocate. So the INEC representative ought to have moved with the committee since there was violence at the original venue and there was no time for the party to write INEC for a change of venue”, the source quoted some NWC members as saying.
Meanwhile, the party yesterday replaced Governor Uzodinma with his erstwhile deputy, Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River state as the new chairman of the primary election committee.….CONTINUE READING>>>>>>
