BY BENEDICT NWACHUKWU, ABUJA
A former national officer of the All Progressives Congress and governorship aspirant in Anambra State, Dr. George Moghalu, has described the party’s June 26 primary election in the state as a charade.
Moghalu, while addressing journalists in Abuja on the Saturday exercise, said, “There was no election in the whole wards of Anambra State. What happened was a charade.
“On Saturday, June 26, members of the All Progressives Congress in Anambra State mobilised themselves in unprecedented numbers to participate in direct primary elections to choose a candidate to represent the party in the Anambra State governorship election scheduled for November 6, but that was not to be as in the 326 electoral wards of the state, party faithful, members of the press, officials from the Independent National Electoral Commission and officers of the security agencies waited from morning till evening for the arrival of the election materials for accreditation to begin and for elections to hold that never was.”
Moghalu noted that the election materials arrived late in the evening after both the voters and the officials had dispersed, and long past the time when it was possible to conduct an election while in the rest of the state, neither materials nor personnel arrived. He said that as a result, elections did not hold in any voting centre in Anambra State on June 26.
Rejecting the result announced by the Governor Dapo Abiodun-led Primary Elections Committee, the APC governorship aspirant said, “Despite this evident reality, the primary election committee appointed by the leadership of the party and chaired by the governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun, went ahead to produce and announce purported results based on nothing other than their fertile imagination motivated by their private interests and arrangements.”
He maintained that the motivation of those private interests could have caused them to produce results so dubious that they had made themselves and APC the subject of derision across the state in particular, and the country in general.
Moghalu alleged that in the 2017 election, a total of 448,771 people voted in an election that was keenly contested by 37 political parties and their candidates, yet, the Ogun State governor-led primary elections committee wants to convince Nigerians and the world that nearly 350,000 votes were cast on Saturday in the middle of the night across 326 voting centres in 21 local government areas of the state.
“It’s unfortunate that people in top positions can act the way the governor acted. You presided over a charade. Somebody stayed at the comfort of his house and wrote results and you claimed you have conducted an election and was bold to announce it as result of the primaries. It’s not only unfortunate, it’s saddening,” he said.
He also noted that no major television station in the country had one recorded video clip of the purported elections in Anambra State while there were thousands of videos showing voters across the state complaining bitterly about the fact that neither the materials nor the personnel for elections was provided in their locales.
“Are you not surprised that a national party as big as APC can conduct elections and there will not be video recordings from national and major television stations? Arrogant incompetence of the farce orchestrated by Dr. Dapo Abiodun, his team and the people they answered to, insults every man and woman in Anambra State.
“The Committee has abused its authority and participated in the corruption of the democratic ideals of the progressive movement. They have sought to rubbish the hard work and sacrifice that has gone into building the All Progressives Congress in Anambra State. I reject these results in their entirety and without the slightest reservation,’ he said.
He warned that he would do everything within his abilities and within the appeals process of the party and the law to ensure that the travesty orchestrated by the Dapo Abiodun-led Committee would not stand.
Mogalu indicated that he had appointed a legal team and had gathered evidences to expose what he described as fraud.
