All federal government alleviation programmes executed in Anambra were used to lure residents to join the All Progressives Congress, says the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige.
Mr. Ngige, a former Governor of the state, stated this while expressing his displeasure in the APC primaries held on Saturday on a Channels TV show monitored by Anaedoonline.ng.
“It’s not a case of you didn’t mobilize. All the aspirants contributed money when we were doing the registration. All the aspirants were interested in going to the wards and getting people out.
I, as a minister, I brought some of the poverty alleviation programmes to many of the communities to get people (you know, to ginger them) to join my party,” the minister said, faulting the election that saw to the emergence of Senator Andy Uba as the APC candidate in the Anambra gubernatorial poll.
Mr. Ngige also lamented how he alongside some of his relations and in-laws who are members of the party were disenfranchised owing to the unavailability of the electoral materials.
Recall that Ubah, a former Senator who represented Anambra South Senatorial District emerged the winner in the primary election contested by 13 other aspirants.
Declaring the results of the exercise on Sunday morning at the Golden Tulips Hotel, Agulu, Anambra State, the Chairman of the Anambra State Primary Election Committee and Governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun, said Senator Ubah polled 230, 201 votes out of the total votes of 348,490, to defeat his closest rival, Onunwoku Johnbosco who polled 28, 746 and 12 other contestants.
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Abiodun said the election took place in 20 out of the 21 Local Government Areas of the state, noting that the election could not hold in Onitsha South due to the failure of the Returning Officers to conduct the election after collecting election materials from the committee’s secretariat.
The governor further disclosed that an Option A-4 method was adopted in the election, and blamed the delay in the conduct of the election as scheduled on the failure of the contestants to supply 30 of their representatives as directed by the committee.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ngige has demanded that the Saturday primaries be conducted afresh, alleging that the last exercise was marred by fraud.
Recall that 11 of the 14 governorship aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Anambra State have said that the June 26 governorship primary in the state did not hold.
George Moghalu, the spokesperson for the aspirants, made the position of the group known in a press conference on Saturday in Awka.
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Mr. Moghalu said that in all the 326 electoral wards of the state, people came out to vote, but that none of the APC team saddled with the responsibility to conduct the primary and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials were seen.
The aspirants, however, appealed to the party leadership to come up with a fresh date for the Anambra primary to ensure that the party beat the deadline in the Electoral Act.
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