…as factional candidates lay claim to INEC certificates of return
The three major political parties in Imo State are in a quandary as aspirants belonging to aggrieved rival factions lay claims to the Certificates of Return issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
In the All Progressives Congress, the war is between Senator Hope Uzodinma and a former Chief of Staff to Governor Rochas Okorocha, who is also his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu. While Senator Uzodinma is claiming that he won the first governorship primary election conducted by Ahmed Gulak, Nwosu insists that he won the second election announced by the electoral committee headed by Ibrahim Agbabiaka.
But some governorship aspirants under a coalition known as the Imo Allied Forces in support of Senator Uzodimma and Eze Madumere, has claimed that they were not part of the process, adding that they had gone to court to stop the primaries.
However, while declaring the results, Agbabiaka said that all the nine governorship aspirants participated in the exercise.
It was learnt that Uzodinma, whose faction submitted his name to INEC as the APC governorship candidate, has also been given an automatic senatorial ticket. Now, he holds both the governorship certificate obtained from INEC and the senatorial certificate, while Nwosu, it was gathered, claimed that INEC also gave him both governorship and House of Representatives certificates of return.
Investigation by our correspondent revealed that the automatic ticket given to Uzodinma to return to the Senate has displaced Governor Okorocha, who claimed that he won the Imo East Senatorial Zone in the primary conducted by Agbabiaka. It was learnt that the governor is seeking redress in the law court over his displacement.
This has been the situation in the ruling party in the past three weeks as top government functionaries and members of the coalition force have relocated their bases to Abuja where they are now slugging it out.
The situation appears the same in the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, where Senator Samuel Anyanwu, popularly called Samdaddy, after congratulating the winner in the governorship primary conducted in the state, Rt Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, proceeded to court to challenge what he termed “over voting.”
It was gathered, however, that Anyanwu, who felt that he had lost both the governorship and senatorial seats, decided to go to court to see if he could be given an automatic ticket to return to the Senate, but his hope has dimed as the former House of Representatives member, Onyenwuchi Ezenwa, has already clinched the ticket.
Similarly, the leaders of the aggrieved faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance in Imo State are at war with their National Working Committee, which they have accused of criminally extorting the aspirants and over 20,000 members, who bought delegates forms with huge sum of money.
They took a swipe at the Chief Victor Oye-led National Working Committee and the National Leader of the party and Governor of Anambra State, Chief Willy Obiano, accusing them of using the party as a conduit pipe to extort money from members.
It was alleged that Obiano and Oye also collected billions of naira from Senator Ifeanyi Araraume to give him the governorship ticket of APGA.
This, it was gathered, split the party into two as some members have decided to pitch tent with PDP or join new parties to actualise their dreams.
Capt. Emmanuel Ihenacho, in his Emekuku country home reiterated their position that no primary elections took place to elect candidates for elective office, saying that those parading themselves as candidates were hand-picked by some politicians from the neighbouring Anambra State
Iheanacho, who is a member of the Board of Trustees and the party’s 2015 governorship candidate in the state, queried the emergence of Senator Ifeanyi Araraume as the party’s gubernatorial candidate in the absence of a primary election. He maintained that APGA and its leaders in Imo didn’t know him as the party’s governorship candidate.
“We had earlier told the national leadership of APGA that we don’t want a situation where somebody who is not a member of the party could actually go and buy a form to contest to become the party’s flag-bearer in Imo without first joining the party. The party as it is today never conducted any primary election, and one wonders how Araraume got the said ticket. This idea of him approaching people and being nice to people is immaterial. To become the flag-bearer of the people, you have to articulate a vision that aligns with the ideology of the party. Otherwise, the party’s ticket would amount to have been put up for sale,” Ihenacho said.
