The crisis of confidence rocking the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over its last Friday governorship primary appears unending as another aspirant, Dennis Idahosa, who was the first runner-up at the primary, described the result of the exercise, where Senator Monday Okpebholo emerged as party’s standard-bearer as fictitious.
Meanwhile, another aspirant and member of the House of Representatives, Anamero Dekeri, had also faulted the result with a vow to challenge it at the appeal panel set up by the party.
It would be recalled that the first primary held on Saturday, February 17, 2024, produced three different candidates in the persons of Okpebholo, Idahosa and Dekeri.
The development forced the National Working Committee (NWC) to order for a repeat of the collation of the results, in addition to removing Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State as the chairman of the committee saddled with the responsibility of conducting the primary.
While Uzodinma announced Idahosa as winner, the returning officer, Dr Stanley Ugboaja, declared Monday Okpebholo as winner. Also, Ojo Babatunde, who claimed to be representing the returning officers in all the local governments declared Dekeri as the winner of the election.
Governor Bassey Otu of Cross State, who replaced Uzodinma as the Chairman of Edo APC’s fresh poll, made the declaration after collating the results from the 18 local government areas’ returning officers that conducted the poll in the 192 wards of the state.
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Okpebholo polled 12,433 votes to defeat Idahosa, the representative of Ovia constituency in the House of Representatives who scored 6,541 votes.
In a tacit rejection of the results in a post on his official Facebook page, Idahosa expressed appreciation to his supporters, urging them to maintain peace in the face of provocation.
My dear esteemed supporters and party faithful, let me first of all appreciate all party faithful across Edo State for your massive and unwavering support towards my governorship ambition of becoming our party’s flag bearer in the 2024 Edo governorship election.
“I will never take this show of love and confidence for granted going forward.
“The declaration of fictitious primary election results by the Sen. Bassey Otu’s Committee represents the highest level of rape on democracy ever witnessed in Edo State.
“Events in the last few days may have been very disappointing and demoralizing to lots of people as your votes seemed not to have counted going by the process and declaration of fictitious primary election results of what happened on the field on the 22nd of February re-run elections in the 192 wards of the State.
“Let me assure you all, our teaming supporters that, I shall explore all the party internal mechanisms to resolve the issues, and seek justice and where that doesn’t work, I shall communicate with you all on our next line of action.
“Please continue to maintain peace in the face of provocation,” he admonished.