One of the governorship aspirants in the just concluded All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo state, Hon. Dennis Idahosa, has described the rescheduled primary elections which took place last Thursday as mere ‘selection’.
To this end, Idahosa and a Chieftain of the APC from Edo state, Bernard Ekun who accompanied Idahosa alongside other party members during the protests at the APC secretariat, Abuja, aid on the February 17 primary they stand.
Recall that Idahosa was one of the three aspirants declared as the winner of the said primary.
Addressing journalists at the APC National secretariat on Saturday in Abuja, Idahosa called on President Bola Tinubu to call the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to order.
He said he had submitted a protest letter to the APC governorship Appeal Committee.
Idahosa stated: “I am not here to make trouble, I am a lawmaker but one thing that we want is justice. Today, I might be a young man but it might be the children of NWC members tomorrow. We have to do the right thing, if we continue to do what is wrong as a country, we are not going to move forward.
“So, I am calling on Mr. President to call NWC to order. Elections were held on the 17th of February. What they did on the 22nd was just selection.
“I challenged one of the LGA returning officers to give me, show me a picture of him in the Local government headquarters where he said he collated the results and he was just blabbing, there was nothing because I know that they were in the same hotel in Benin, that’s where they wrote all the results.
“So my fellow party members, I am not here to make trouble, I am only here to seek justice, whatever they have done, if it is not properly managed, I have written yesterday (Friday) to the appeal panel committee and I know they will do justice, even if whatever they did, I just want to go through the process, having exhausted the party’s resolve mechanism, I will go further, I will seek justice in the court of law and I will not allow this to stand.”
Also, Ekun, said the party was trying to deliberately avoid APC from providing or getting a candidate for the election.
He said the rescheduled primary election held last Thursday was not acceptable to them.
Ekun noted: “When something is inconclusive, it invariably means some places have been identified for primaries to be done in those places, but sadly enough, first, nobody came to the field from the other end.
“The governor who was in charge of the purportedly selection primaries said that it was going to be a fresh election. Between me and you, when you know the issue of INEC, there is supposed to be 21 days notices from INEC for that primary. Nothing of such and we are out of time.
“Are you people saying that the selection process you have done, which you called a fresh election should be acceptable to us? No”
Ekun noted that their decision is that the February 17 primary election that produced three different candidates stands.
He added: “Our demand is that the 17th February primaries stands. That is known to Law. What they have done is kangaroo selection. What these people have done is that they have sold their responsibility, the excellence in them, they have sold as reasonable men. They have sold it for a Chinese cuisine, they have sold it for egg fries. But if you want to go to the Bible, they have sold it for a pot of porridge. And it will not stand!
“People were in the hotel sleeping, how will they have been able to get a result? Even INEC did not observe this selection. The kangaroo thing they said they were doing. So what you have seen is that there is no election, we stand on 17th because that is the only one that is duly observed and fallen between the ambit of the law.”