As controversy continues to trail the conduct of parallel governorship primaries in Anambra State by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Anambra State chapter of the party yesterday insisted that Senator Andy Uba remains its duly elected governorship candidate.
Senator Andy Uba had emerged in one of the primaries supervised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which was conducted by Ejike Oguebego who is the chairman of the faction of PDP recognised by the electoral umpire, while Tony Nwoye won the primaries conducted by the Anambra Governorship Electoral Panel set up by the national secretariat of party.
Reacting to comments by the PDP national chairman, Dr Bamanga Tukur when he received the report of the 5-man Electoral Panel led by Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State at the PDP national secretariat yesterday that he would accept the
result of the primaries presented by the Shema electoral panel, members of Anambra State chapter said Uba’s election was irrevocable.
According to a member of the state executive committee, “Uba was duly elected at a congress which was supervised by INEC from the beginning to the end and INEC monitoring officials and security agencies even have copies of the result of the congress”.
The official who craved for anonymity said there is only one recognised PDP state chairman in Anambra state and it was this same executive headed by Chief Oguebego that conducted the primaries which was won by Uba.
According to him, “We do not believe that PDP national secretariat would want to do anything that might jeopardise the party’s chances by supporting congress conducted by one unrecognised illegal executive committee headed by Ken Emeakayi.”
He said there is no going back on Uba’s nomination, more so when INEC that had constitutional duties to monitor activities of political parties were on ground to monitor the election that produced Uba as the party flag bearer.
“It is very apparent to members of PDP in Anambra state who is the authentic PDP candidate. If what happened at the venue of the other parallel faction was not a charade, why did the INEC not send their officials to monitor the exercise”, he asked.