By Ifeizu Joe
Aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Anambra East and West State Constituency, Hon Patrick Udoba has protested the carting away of primary election results for 11 wards in the area.
The APC primary election which held on Saturday caused a lot of uproar, with the adoption of option A4 for the exercise.
In Anambra East and West, Hon Udeoba said the exercise had gone on successfully, with results of the 15 wards in the constituency already concluded, when he received a call that after the declaration of just four wards, some thugs broke into the APC secretariat in the area and carted away results of 11 constituency that were yet to be declared.
He said: “I feel bad because this is the constituency of the state chairman of APC, Senator Emma Anosike, and if there is anywhere we expected to have a peaceful primary, it should be in my constituency.
“President Tinubu had assured of a credible primaries, and the electoral law had stipulated consensus candidature as mode of primary, and direct primary in cases where there are no consensus.
“In our case, we are three aspirants for Anambra East and West Federal Constituency, so we couldn’t reach a consensus, hence the direct primary. In our own case, the state chairman of the great party, APC, is from my constituency, a senator, for that matter, a man of respect. So with his big name and all these things, I believe that Anambra East and West should be the most peaceful area in conducting that direct primaries, but I really wonder exactly what happened yesterday.
“I was in Anambra West for my own ward election before I heard a very sad news that some hoodlums jump into the party secretariat at Anambra West and took away the results of 11 wards.
“Only results of four wards were intact. I quickly rushed down to the venue, I met the officials, I also met another of our leaders, Ralph Okeke. I asked them what was going on, and they said that some hoodlums jumped in and took the result.
“The only thing I told them was not to accept a falsified result, and to reach out to our party leaders in Awka, so that they can reschedule a new date for the 11 wards, or they should use the result of the four wards to determine the winner. Whichever one they accept, I’m in for it, but falsified results should not be accepted.”
Udoba said he also reached out the state chairman, but he did not take his calls. He said he was ready for a rerun primary, but the process must be credible. He charged the leadership of the party to quickly wade in, to be able to beat deadline for the conduct of primary elections as stipulated by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
