The All Progressives Congress (APC) Stakeholders Forum has described the purported announcement of Dennis Idahosa as the winner of Edo state governorship primary election by Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo state as null and void.
The Election Committee led by Uzodinma had on Saturday announced Idahosa as the winner of the primary election and the standard bearer of the party in the governorship election scheduled for September.
Also, another parallel primary election held same day in produced Hon. Anamero Dekeri as the winner of the primary.
But addressing a press conference on Sunday in Abuja, the leader of the group, Hon. Emmanuel Godwin maintained that Uzodimma lacks the power to usurp the duties and responsibilities of local government returning officers in the Edo state primaries.
His words: “In this instance, we have been inundated with news that a particular candidate was announced yesterday by His Excellency, Hope Uzodinma who incidentally is the chairman of the primary election committee, edo state.
“It is unfortunate that Hope Uzodimma who is not the returning officer in whatever capacity assumed the position and went ahead to announce Denis Idahosa when the returning officers were still collating the results.
“We wish to therefore state categorically that the purported announcement is null and void and it should be disregarded in its entirety. Governor Uzodimma lacks the power to usurpe duties and responsibilities of local government returning officers in the Edo state primaries.
“We also condemned in a very strong term the attempt by His Excellency Hope, Hope Uzodima to subvert the will of the Edo people by declaring fictitious results from the 18 local government areas in the absence of the collation officers who were officially sent to the various local governments.”
The group, therefore, called on the National chairman of the party, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje and President Bola Tinubu to as a matter of honour discard Uzodimma’s infamous declaration of Idahosa who didn’t win the primaries.
It added that Idahosa lacks the capacity, competence and character to win Edo state gubernatorial election for the APC come September 2024.