Abia ADC Governorship Primary: Methodist Bishop, Onuoha, wins

* As opponent, Ukiwe, kicks, may head to court

From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia

Bishop  Sunday Ndukwo Onuoha, Saturday night, emerged the governorship candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Abia State.

Onuoha, a Methodist Bishop, polled 330 votes to win the contest at the ADC governorship primary held at the Kolping Society in Umuahia.

But his rival,  Otisi Ebitu Ukiwe, son of former Nigeria’s Chief of General Staff and elder statesman , Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, who got 160 votes, has cried foul. He prayed the party to cancel the exercise or he would challenge the outcome in court.

The result of the primary election was announced by the Returning Officer, Comrade Nkem Ukandu,  who said 20 void votes were recorded. Ukandu returned Onuoha as the governorship candidate of ADC, having polled the highest number of votes.

Onuoha who is the President Vision Africa International and Founder/President of Umuahia-based Vision Africa Radio, in his acceptance speech, congratulated his opponent for fighting a good battle and for showing maturity while their consultations lasted.

“It’s a new beginning for Abia state, I believe that Abians have spoken this night and they are saying that there is a new way to do politics in the state,” Onuoha said, assuring that he would transform Abia by applying digital economy.

But Ukiwe’s camp is not amused by the outcome of the exercise which it said was a sham.

Ukiwe’s Agent at the primary election, Robert Onuma, called the exercise a charade, saying it was characterized by irregularities.

In an interview with newsmen, Onuma said: “In all my observation as the Agent representing His Excellency, Otisi Ebitu Ukiwe, it is known by virtually everybody that what we are seeing today is not the way a party conducts its primary election, mainly the accreditation was faulty because usually, you will bring in all the party men and there will be accreditation and delegates will be identified by their Ward and local Government Chairmen, which did not happen.

“Going further, it’s not like anyone of us is against the PWDs voting in an election. But in an election such as choosing a governorship candidate for a party, they should not amount to be 70 per cent of the delegates in the primary election; and they are people that are listed in our opponents Foundation because he is a Methodist clergy, as I learnt.

“There was no list of delegates presented to us. It was hidden up until this moment and all the delegates that we met with across board in the entire state, they are all very aggrieved because they are all around here, they were not given the option of exercising their right of being delegates. The list of people that were permitted to vote in here is totally strange.

“Going by the party constitution, everything was done upside down… We tried not to create violence because there is no need for that because we have an option of doing things right.

“So, we are aggrieved and we are letting the world know that the ADC (governorship) primary in Abia state is nothing but a charade, a joke; there was not election done.

“Going further, they also told us that why they did not use the original party delegates list is because when they requested the party chairmen across the local governments and wards to produce a list, that they gave lists that they weren’t comfortable with and as such, they went ahead to cancel that.

“If you had cancelled that, you should have let the aspirants know the reason or properly bring them in for a congress to address the issue, which they didn’t do. So, we feel like we need to make the world know that no election really happened here….

“You don’t bring out a man and you have him do the necessary things he needs to do, particularly to move the party forward, and you rubbish him.

“We are just laying our grievance that we are not happy and we will follow our case in due course in court, if they don’t choose to do the right thing by cancelling what we are seeing here today.”

Corroborating Onuma’s views, a female delegate, said to be an official of Abia ADC who did not want her name mentioned declared that the exercise was not free and fair.

She said “this primary is supposed to be free and fair; it is not free, it is not fair. Whatever they are doing is against Ebitu Ukiwe,” adding that fake delegates were procured to vote in the primary while real ADC members were disallowed from voting.