Four governorship aspirants on the platform of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Benue state, have petitioned the APC governorship appeal panel set up to investigate the controversy which trailed the just concluded primaries conducted last weekend.
The petitioners, Senator Barnabas Gemade, former Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Mike Aondokaa, SAN, Professor Terhemen Shija and Mathias Byuan, in their prayers, before the three man panel headed by Princess Uzoama Ocheama, are demanding the nullification of the primaries and to fresh conduct of another primary in line with party rules and published mode of primary.
Senator Gemade, a former Board of Trustee, BOT chairman of PDP, alleged that the election which took place without following the mode of primary prescribed by the party amounts to sham.
In a petition he submitted on May 30, 2022 at the APC state secretariat, Gemade told the committee that he had cautioned the party on May 26, 2022 not to go ahead with the conduct of the election if its going to use the direct mode of primaries, as it will lead to litigations and the party will end up not fielding candidates in the 2023 elections.
He said he was shocked that despite his caution, the party went ahead and conducted what could be described as “a sham, with bogus results and votes allocated primitively to aspirants, while members of the party anxious to vote waited in vain at their various council wards headquarters without seeing any electoral officers or materials.”
Senator Gemade further complained that even the adopted mode of primaries the committee used was full of irregularities and electoral frauds ranging from non availability of party registers, where even aspirants and their agents were denied voting.
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He urged the panel to cancel the purported exercise/results, and conduct a fresh elections by the indirect mode as earlier recommended by the National Working Committee of the party to avoid a repeat of the zamfara episode.
Also in his complaint, former AGF, Mike Aondokaa, Professor Shija and Byuan, all acknowledged that what took place on the 27th of May was an aberration against democracy which should not be allowed to stand.
The chairman of the appeal panel, Princess Ugoama Ucheama, who assured that their petitions will be looked into also appealed to them to remain that the party will revert to them.
The Next Edition recalled that the APC in Benue state held its governorship primaries last weekend, a process which elected the suspended catholic priest, Hyacinth Alia, as the candidate in the forthcoming 2023 general election.
