The National Working Committee,
NWC, of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has been divided by moves by
powerful forces to upturn the victory of Dr. Tony Nwoye, at the governorship
primaries.
Nwoye, a member of the House of
Representatives won the August 26 primary with 2,145 votes to beat Senator Andy
Uba who got 931 votes.
Governor Kashim Shettima led
primary committee conducted the election.
But Uba, who initially hailed the
outcome of the election, petitioned the national leadership of the party,
alleging that the result was doctored.
Recall that the primary
election appeal panel report was submitted to theparty’s National Secretariat on
Tuesday
Speaking, an official of the party
in Abuja said that some members have been induced with “at least N200m to
cancel the result of the freest and fairest primary ever conducted in the
history of the party”.
The source confided in our
correspondent that “even the party leadership is aware of the fact that a huge
sum of money has been distributed”.
“Whoever wants to counter what I
am saying should come out. Right before the election, over 10 wealthy
businessmen stormed Anambra for their candidate who now wants to be declared
winner.
“Raw cash was flying everywhere;
they boasted the primary is already sealed. Their comments leaked. Now they
want to get a ticket they didn’t win even where the man was thoroughly and
convincingly repeated.
“When will Nigeria get it right
if we allow impunity and illegality to go on? This man is playing God because
he is connected, but people forget that power belongs to the Almighty, he gives
whoever he pleases. Nobody gave Nwoye any chance, but he won
“On the day of that election,
there were about 6 checking spots. So if you passed one, you will meet another.
They said 2000 aliens were brought in as delegates but the question is, how do
you even convey fake delegates without being detected.
“All those who voted were
identified by their ward chairmen. Once you are identified, you then receive
tag. Don’t forget that all these were under the watchful eyes of INEC
officials, security agencies and agents of all the contestants.
“The man shouting now used his
mouth to praise the conduct of the primary, it was aired live on NTA. Money is
not everything, he lost and he should accept as his fate. We need to start
preparing to win the election; they should save us these distractions”.
Another top party member, accused
a former top Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, PDP, who is a senior APC national
officer, as the arrowhead of the bribe shared to annul the election.
He lamented that it was
unfortunate that the “very corrupt” ex-PDP member, who was part of the team
that conducted the election in Awka and witnessed all that transpired sold out
for money.
The source said that those
seeking the annulment of Nwoye’s victory had tried in vain to compromise
Governor Shettima, to do their bidding and impose Uba on the party as its
candidate but the governor declined and opted for the conduct of a free and
fair election to enable the emergence of the best candidate for the party.
“The Chairman of the election
panel politely told those who approached him that he could not be bought with
any price and would therefore conduct a free election by providing a
level-playing field for all the candidates to test their popularity.
“In fact, when we arrived Awka
for the primaries all of us had expected that Andy Uba was going to sweep the
polls because of his position as a former governor and a sitting senator but
when the results came out, he lost by a wide margin to Nwoye and we could not
change the decision of the electorate for whatever reason”.
The source dismissed insinuations
that the appeal panel was being pressed by the Presidency and security agencies
to replace Nwoye with Uba, arguing that neither President Buhari nor the
Director General of the DSS, had any hand in what he described as the unholy
bid to replace the winner.
“I can tell you that what is
happening is that some powerful politicians in the PDP and the Senate, who are
more comfortable with Uba want him to contest against Governor Obiano with the
hope that once he wins, he would return to the PDP, from where he crossed over
to the APC early this year”.
Meanwhile, Nwoye has spoken
on moves to upturn his victory.
He hailed the conduct of primary
that produced him as candidate and urged the party to toe the part of honour,
fairness, truth and justice by affirming him as the APC flagbearer for the
November 28 election.
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