Controversies trail APC, PDP state congresses in Ebonyi
[From CHINEDU NWAFOR, Abakaliki]
State congresses of the two major political parties in Ebonyi State, the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which held simultaneously on Saturday were characterized by controversies.
While that of the APC held at the Pa Oruta Ngele Township Stadium, the PDP’s was held at the People’s Club Arena.
Mr Stanley Okoro Emegha emerged Chairman of APC while Tochukwu Okorie was elected the Chairman of the PDP in the State.
Chairman of the State APC Congress Committee, Ideato Okorie said Mr Okoro secured 1080 votes out of a total of 1141 votes cast to defeat Akanu Okoro who garnered 61 votes.
Chairman of the PDP congress Committee, Ben Collins said that Mr Tochukwu Okorie polled 1240 votes to defeat his rival, Silas Onu who secured 260 votes.
“The battle has been won and lost, but in our party nobody lost. I urge that after this Congress, those that won should try and bring everybody on board. This is very important because in unity we stand, we need them to win elections.
“Having concluded this exercise, I want to announce the result, particularly the chairman, deputy chairman and the secretary. We all know that it was only chairmanship seat that was contested. I hereby announce that Mr Tochukwu Okorie having scored the majority of the lawful votes is returned elected. The number of the accredited votes is 1510 voters. Out of which Okorie scored 1240. We have 8 invalid votes and the other opponent Silas Onu scored 260 votes,” the committee chairman said.
However, Silas Onu who came second in the PDP’s Congress alleged irregularities in the election, saying it was skewed in favour of a particular candidate.
In an interview with Journalists shortly after the election in Abakaliki, Onu, who is the immediate past Publicity Secretary of the party, said, “we were supposed to have series of meetings and accreditation done. We supposed to know the total number of accredited voters who they are as delegate because it’s not all comers’ affair, but to my greater shock, the electoral committee came to the venue at about 1pm, asked everybody to go out so they can start accreditation, they didn’t take up to 10 people before the crowd broke into the venue.
“And the caretaker committee chairman, Fred Udeogu was sharing tags to people and he is not a member of the Congress electoral committee. In what capacity was he sharing tags to people, giving people who are not delegates tags?
“I complained to Senator Ben Colin’s Committee that what they were doing was not election because there was no accreditation, but I could see that even on the ballot papers, votes were already pre-cast. So, that why they stayed long in Enugu casting votes and they just came to fulfill righteousness.
“I must say that out of respect for the people of Ebonyi State especially the youths were yearning for change, I decided that we should go through this process but I’m that those we call leaders are worst than dictators.
Silas Onu, a barrister, vowed to challenge the outcome of the Congress in the court.
Also, in an interview, a former Commissioner for Information and State orientation, Senator Emmanuel Onwe and chieftain of the PDP, condemned the outcome of the Congress, saying the irregularities would not stand.
In a related development, Kenneth Nwakparata has reportedly emerged as a factional chairman of APC in Ebonyi State.
Governor David Umahi had disclosed on Friday that Nwakparata was planing a parallel APC Congress in the State and declared N500,000.00 bounty on information that could lead to his arrest.
The venue of the congress that produced Nwakparata could not be ascertained as of the time of this report.
