Anambra 2017: Ubah Heads To Court Over PDP Primaries

Barely three weeks af­ter the Peoples Dem­ocratic Party (PDP) conducted its governor­ship primary in Anambra State, one of the aspirants, Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah, yesterday ques­tioned the credibility of the primary and vowed to achieve justice in the court of law.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja, Ubah accused the leaders of the party of using fake delegates’ list to conduct the primary, adding that the certified copy of the list he got from Independent Na­tional Electoral Commission (INEC) was different from what was used at the primary.

Kicking against the pri­mary, the Chairman of Cap­ital oil described it as a show of shame, adding that Os­eloka Obaze, who was de­clared winner, was never given a waiver by the party National Executive Com­mittee (NEC).

Ubah, who said that he has exhausted all internal mechanism of the party, add­ed that “I think it is the court that can address the situation now. We are going to court and if the party comes back to address the situation that will be fine.

“In the quest for justice, I submit myself to fight this il­legality and injustice for my sake as well as that of anyone who aspires to contest un­der the party’s platform and I hope that justice will prevail in the end.”

He said that the primary conducted on August 28th,

2017 “was all but a show of shame as it was marred by obvious irregularities, leaving little to be desired and more questions than answers from the relevant authorities and party officials.

“At best, to any discern­ing mind, the primary elec­tion was a perfection of a pre­conceived orchestrated plot by His Excellency, the Gov­ernor of Rivers State and His Excellency, the former gov­ernor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, alongside selected cabal members of the sever­al committees for this elec­tion set up by PDP to rob well-meaning Anambrari­ans off their earnest yearning for a candidate and eventual governor with a robust ped­igree and a time-tested proof of love for the people.”

Ubah said that though the primary was duly monitored by INEC and other relevant agencies, but the list of dele­gates were hoarded, starving aspirants of the most impor­tant tool needed for the cam­paign to commence, adding that all the aspirants com­plained against this develop­ment except Obaze.

“In view of this, all the aspirants but Mr. Oseloka Obaze condemned the entire process and requested that the primary election be stepped down as the party was clear­ly not ready owing to the time the list was made available to aspirants which was the night of Saturday, 26th of August 2017 for an election scheduled to be conducted on Monday, 28th of August, 201, giving aspirants less than 48 hours to tour round Anambra State canvassing for votes.

“In spite of the misgiv­ings expressed about the pro­cess leading to the election, the Governor Dave Umahi-led committee, acting true to type, threw caution to the wind, completely ignored the calls for the primary election to be stepped down and de­cided to go ahead with the ex­ercise which eventually ended up on a dramatic note.

“As a result, four aspirants including Prince John Emeka, Mr. Akolisa Ofodile, Sen. Stel­la Oduah and Linda Ikpeazu withdrew from the race on ac­count of an alleged plot to im­pose a particular candidate on the vast majority of party loy­alists in Anambra State.

“On Sunday, 27th of Au­gust, 2017, when the list was published, it was totally dif­ferent from the list INEC had certified and made available to me. Unfortunately, there was no-one to complain to,” he said.

Speaking further, Ubah said that “It was discovered that the list provided by Gov­ernor Nyesom Wike and his committee members through Governor Dave Umahi was totally different from the list certified by INEC. This list was also different from the list which was pasted and given to the aspirants by PDP.

“Following this flawed process, there were many complaints of accredited del­egates being sidelined, re­placing them with a new set of delegates. This glaring rack­et caused by the Dave Umahi-led committee saw a majori­ty of the accredited delegates tear gassed and thrown into a state of confusion as well as disenfranchised.

“This sinister move caused a heavy distraction in the pro­cess and allowed those who were not in the INEC certi­fied delegate list be smuggled in and manipulated to vote for an aspirant who was imposed on them by Peter Obi.”

The Capital oil boss also pointed out that there were ir­regularities in the votes count.

Speaking on why Obaze should not be declared win­ner of the primary, Ubah said, “It is also pertinent to state that Mr. Oseloka Obaze is not qualified to contest in the An­ambra State governorship pri­mary election as he did not get the requisite waiver from the party owing to the fact that he had just been in the party for four months as against the mandatory requirement of be­ing a party member for at least two years as enshrined in the PDP Constitution.”