BY AGENCY REPORTER
Dr. Tony Nwoye, an aspirant in the June 26 Peoples Democratic Party governorship primary in Anambra State has withdrawn from the process just a few hours to the commencement of the exercise.
According to Nwoye, the decision followed the exclusion of the party’s newly-elected ad-hoc delegates and executive members from the process.
In a statement issued on Saturday in Awka, the state capital ahead of the election, Nwoye said that with the exclusion of 94 per cent of the delegates, only six per cent of them would determine the outcome.
The statement, signed by Nwoye and made available to journalists in Awka, described the process as a mockery of democracy, adding that those excluded were the engine of the party whom he would have depended on to win the primary as well as the main elections.
The National Working Committee of the party, citing court orders, had excluded the ad-hoc delegates and party executives at all levels from partaking in the election.
Only the serving and former officials of the party are involved in the election of the party’s standard bearer for the November 6, 2021, governorship election in the state.
The statement read, “We all have been witnesses to the disconcerting flurry of events in our party in the last 36 hours. These are developments which should be of grave concern to every true democrat and believer in the inalienability of the rights of true party people to freely choose the party’s standard bearer in the upcoming elections in our beloved state, Anambra.
“On Thursday, I was still traversing the hinterland, ahead of the primaries, slated for Saturday, June 26, when I was jolted by the news of the party’s National Working Committee’s release concerning the primaries.
“In the release, the entire ward level executives, local government executives and state executives and also the elected ad hoc delegates who emerged from the duly conducted delegates election, will no longer be voting in the primaries.
“Instead, only a handful of automatic/super delegates whose names appeared in a made-up list will be deciding who flies the party’s flag at the governorship polls.
“Owing to this development, I consulted with my supporters, most of whom are the bedrock of our party at the grassroots level where I belong, and my ever-supportive family, and came to the inevitable conclusion that the process had been greatly flawed,” he concluded.
