APC guber primaries: Abia aspirant threatens legal action over alleged ill-treatment

A political structure, Chief Daniel Eke Campaign Organisation, said it would explore all legitimate and legal options to challenge the outcome of Thursday’s parallel primary elections in Abia.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Chief Daniel Eke, a U.S-based chartered accountant, is a governorship aspirant on the platform of APC in Abia.

The group stated that it would rely on the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended) and the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and other legal devices to redress alleged aberration that took place in the state.

It maintained that the legal action would become imperative, if the national leadership of the party failed to take pragmatic steps to redress the anomaly.

It issued the threat in a statement made available to newsmen in Umuahia on Monday.

It stated that the party had yet to produce a governorship candidate for 2023 in Abia.

It, therefore, urged the people of the state and Nigerians to “disregard the misleading, dangerous and pejorative claims”.

NAN reports that two candidates emerged at the end of Thursday’s parallel elections by the party in the state.

While the state Chairman, Dr Kingsley Ononogbu, organised an indirect primary election that produced Chief Ikechi Emenike as candidate, the Acho Obioma-led faction elected the former Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Chief Sampson Ogah, allegedly by direct mode of primary.

In the two congresses, votes were allegedly allocated to all the contestants, including aspirants that had long defected to other political parties.

Eke was credited with 16 votes and 1953 votes, respectively by each side.

His campaign organisation described the development as “very laughable frivolities, pitiable and hysteric hallucination”.

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It distanced Eke from either of the groups, saying that the aspirant could not have participated in a phantom election.

It drew the attention of the party’s National Working Committee, INEC and the public to the fact that Eke “was not communicated with the venue and mode of the purported primary election by those vested with the obligation to do so.

“Therefore, we are not aware that such election was effectuated in Abia,” the group added.

It said it amounted to illegality and abuse of process “to conduct any election without the consent of those who spent their hard earned money to purchase nomination forms and funding their campaigns.

“It shall be a show of shame and an affront on democracy,” it further stated.

It added that the alleged outcome of the exercise shall never be allowed to stand.

It asked: “How can any person claim to have conducted an indirect primary election in Abia, when there was no election to elect the delegates at the various levels?

“And when there was no communication made by the committee that was sent to Abia from Abuja.”

The organisation said APC had no candidate for 2023 in Abia, until a fresh election was conducted in the state.

“We therefore call on all the relevant authorities, including INEC and members of the public to disregard the claims and reject any attempt to foist any person as APC governorship candidate in Abia,” it stated.

The group apealed to the National Working Committee of the party “to without hesitation, fix a date to conduct a valid direct primary election, which shall comply strictly with Article 20.4 of the APC Constitution and Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended).

It stated that such a measure would enable the teeming members of APC in Abia “to see that, the fair and just thing has been done and save the party from implosion”.

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