Primaries haunt PDP, APC in states

The just concluded governorship, House of Assembly and National Assembly primaries in many states are fast turning to nightmare for both the All Progressives Congress  (APC) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party  (PDP).

Despite the calm that greeted the conduct of governorship primaries in Lagos State, we gathered that Shupo Shashore, a leading APC governorship aspirant believed to be loyal to Governor Babatunde Fashola, is planning to ditch the party for Labour Party (LP) to actualise his governorship ambition.

Also, in Ebonyi State, Governor Martin Elechi, who the national secretariat of PDP schemed out in governorship primaries following the rejection out of his candidate, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, the former Minister of Health, is already putting his weight behind the LP candidate as his sons and cabinet members have joined the party.

In Rivers State PDP, 17 angry governorship aspirants, who publicly protested the candidature of the former Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, are still furious about his victory last Monday.

Some of the aspirants have threatened to dump the PDP and pitch tent with either LP or All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) if the victory of Wike is not reversed.

The aspirants who are mainly of Kalabari extraction have also threatened that PDP would lose Rivers State if Wike’s victory is upheld. In the Rivers West Senatorial District, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Chief Chibudom Nwuche, who was alleged to have been deliberately schemed out of the senatorial primary in the PDP, lamented what he called a “calculated” attempt by the leadership of the party in the state to rubbish him.

“The primaries were not free and fair. Delegates were being intimidated. They put ballot boxes for every LGA. I asked that they remove them, but they refused and numbered them so that they will know who voted for whom,” he said.

In Osun State, members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ayedire Local Government Area have called for the review of the selection of the House of Assembly candidate for Ayedire state constituency.

The APC members, who protested against the choice of Hon. Leke Ogunsola, as the candidate of the party for the 2015 House of Assembly election, said they rejected the nomination of Ogunsola because he was not the choice of the people.

The APC members, who stormed the party secretariat in Osogbo on Friday, accused some leaders of the party of imposing Ogunsola on them, contrary to the zoning arrangement in the Ayedire constituency.

Until Tuesday, December 9, Professor Julius Ihonvbere, was the secretary to the Edo State Government (SSG). He resigned from the position that afternoon about two years after Governor Adams Eric Oshiomhole appointed him into the state exco.

Many see his exit from the Oshiomhole cabinet as a fall-out of his failed bid to secure APC ticket to represent Edo North Senatorial District in a keenly contested primary held the previous day.

The circumstances under which Professor Ihonvbere failed in his 2015senatorial bid is still a matter of discussion in many circles in the state. In the early days of the campaign, he was perceived as having the brightest chance of upstaging the incumbentsenator representing the district, Senator Domingo Alaba Obende, out ofthe four main contenders for the sticket.

When Engr. Abubakar Momoh, the member representing Etsako Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, who was also in the race for the senatorial ticket, defected from the party. Many analysts then predicted that the opposition against Ihonvbere’s ambition has been further narrowed.

However, it was a shocker when, on the day of the primary, many of thedelegates voted along ethnic line, a situation that threw up the hitherto‘lowly-rated’ Francis Alimikhena of Etsako extraction, as the winner.

Sources said that on the eve of the primary, delegates from Etsako, who are the majority in the district, were instructed to vote in their brethren, Alimikhena, a situation that changed the equation, leading to the retired army officer winning the race at the expense of Ihonvbere and Obende from Owan and

Akoko-Edo respectively. Some people actually pointed accusing fingers at the governor as being the kingpin of the recourse to ethnic politics.

In Edo Central Senatorial District, many believed that the APC ticket would be a straight between Chief Francis Inegbeniki and Theophilus Okoh, a top player in the oil industry. But this was not to be as Okoh came a distant third to Inegbeniki and unrated Prince Joe Okojie.

On the day of the primary, the Ubiaja Stadium venue of the event and its surroundings was filled with suspectedcultists, who openly showed their support for one of the aspirants whileharassing another aspirant and his perceived sympathisers.

Also worrisome was the fact that under the guise of not being literate a lot of the delegates went as far as telling theirchoice aspirant to write his name on their ballot papers.

Many believed that these two factors played a big role in the outcome of the primary result.

Despite his perceived good job as a member of the House ofRepresentatives, Rasak Bello-Osagie, lost the ticket to represent OredoFederal Constituency to the speaker of the state House of Assembly, Uyi Igbe, allegedly on account of instructions from‘the powers-that-be that he should be voted out. He was quoted as openlydeclaring while campaigning about four years ago that in the locality, the seat is tenable for only a term.

The race to represent Esan North East in the state House of Assembly was seriously contested by Festus Ebea, speaker of the PDP faction of the state House of Assembly and Victor Emuakagbon, a former aide of the erstwhile governor of the state, Professor Oserheimen Osunbor. It took the intervention of the chairman of theparty’s BoT, Chief Tony Anenih, who allegedly instructed that the ticket should be handed over to the former as a compensation for his “good boy” role in the crisis that plagued legislature.

Saturday Independent learnt that the action has generated a lot of bad blood in the area with supporters of Emuakagbon threatening to vote en mass for the APC during the general election next year.

In Egor, supporters of some of the defeated aspirants for the House ofAssembly are spoiling for a fight. Their anger is over the alleged twisting of the result of the primary in favour of a former chairman of the council, Nosa Adams, who is presently facing the lawfor allegedly spearheading violence during the party’s delegates nomination held earlier.

In Oyo State, the worst hit was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) whose choice of former Senate Leader, Teslim Kolawole Folarin, has become a subject of litigation in addition to the defection of one of the most formidable aspirants, former Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala to LP.

One of the leading aspirants, Seyi Makinde, who was in possession of a court order directing that only the list of ward delegates signed by three out of five-member panel that conducted the re-run ward congress should be used for the conduct of the primary elections, had threatened to approach the court should the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) admit Folarin as PDP’s governorship candidate.

Alao-Akala, against all entreaties from the national body of the party, had dumped it for LP where he had been offered the gubernatorial ticket.

The story was the same in the ruling APC in the state, where, though, the incumbent governor, Abiola Ajimobi, had won the primary for the 28 February 2015 governorship election, a court case has been filed by one of the aspirants, Adebayo Shittu.

Shittu, a lawyer and former commissioner in the state, withdrew from the primary election after he was cleared for the contest on the basis of the case filed in court earlier, challenging the composition of the delegates for the primary election.

Based on the case, he had written a protest letter to the party, informing it of his pending suit in a Federal High Court, Ibadan, in which he was asking that the primary election should not be conducted based on the delegates elected at the last congress of the party held in April this year.

Shittu had argued that the delegates’election was skewed in favour of one of the aspirants and the governor, Ajimobi, stressing that it would be stupid of him to submit himself to such primary election.

In Plateau State the major political parties have been divided into two camps, as those who lost the primaries have accused their party leaders of manipulating the process.

Third Republic governor of the state, Ambassador Fidelis Tapgun, and 11 other aspirants have called on the national secretariat of the PDP to cancel the governorship primaries result of Plateau State and organise a fresh one.

On the other hand, Plateau Youth Patriotic Front, in a press statement made available to Saturday Independent, called on the state Deputy Governor, Ambassador Ignatius Longjan, the Third Republic Governor of the state, and 10 other governorship aspirants, who lost in the party’s governorship primaries to accept defeat by congratulating the elected governorship candidate, Senator GNS Pwajok.

In Enugu State, aggrieved aspirants  have resorted to internal party mechanisms and the courts to sort out their grievances.

As at the time this report was filed, not even one case of defection has been recorded in the state where parallel primaries were held in two senatorial districts, three federal constituencies and governorship.

Saturday Independent gathered that most of the aggrieved aspirants were not contemplating defection, but rather, waiting for the party and the courts to clear the fog surrounding the primaries.

An aspirant for the House of Representatives, who spoke with our correspondent, said he was waiting for the national leadership of the party to decide the flag bearer in his constituency as parallel primaries were held in his area.

On Thursday, an Enugu High Court granted an injunction restraining Senator Ayogu Eze from parading himself as the candidate of the party in Enugu.

The Court also restrained PDP from accepting any other person as the candidate, except Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, who emerged from the primary at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium.

Senator Eze had emerged from the primary at Filbon Hotel New Haven Enugu.

However, the story is different in the camp of APC  where no parallel primary took place.

Category: NEWS