Senator Ayogu Eze was on Friday declared winner of the All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship primary election in Enugu State.
DAILY POST reports that the result of the exercise, conducted through the direct primacy, was announced by the chairman of the election committee, Prof. Moses Momoh.
According to him, out of the 66,122 votes cast by delegates, 66,002 were valid.
He gave a breakdown of the votes as follows: George Ogara- 293, Benjamin Eche- 840, Augustin Akubue- 181, Ifeanyi Nwoga- 9821 and Ayogu Eze- 53,967.
In the National Assembly result announced by the committee, Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on justice reform, Barr. Mrs. Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu clinched the Enugu West ticket, former Enugu Speaker, Rt. Hon. Eugene Odo got the Enugu North ticket, while Uchenna Ezemba won that of Enugu East.
House of Representatives are as follows: Udi/Ezeagu- Joe Mamel, Aninri/Awgu/Oji River- Vin Martins Ilo, Enugu East/Isi Uzo- Barr. Kate Nnamani, Nkanu East/NkanuWest- Tony Nwafor, Nsukka/Igbo-Eze South- Ikechukwu Ugwuegede, Igbo-Etiti/Uzo-Uwani- Jonathan Chukwuma, Igbo-Eze North/Udenu- Barth Ugwuoke, Enugu-North/Enugu South- Nelson Maduka.
Meanwhile, the announcement of the results, however, caused uproar at the venue as supporters of the Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu, who was a senatorial aspirant in Enugu West, vehemently rejected the results, insisting that their candidate won the primaries.
Addressing the chairman of the electoral panel, Mr. Godwin Onwusi Esq., the Director of Strategy, Osita Okechukwu Campaign Organisation, chided the panel for “awarding a trophy to somebody who did not get to semi-final.”
“There is nothing progressive about this result. This is APC retrogressive. On the day of the primaries, nobody got the result sheets. You instructed that the ward chairman, secretary and woman leader should go and conduct the election, but they were not given original result sheets. What we saw was mere photocopies. We have results from wards signed by officers in 41 wards. From there, Osita got 15000 and yet you said he got 2000 votes. The result is a conspiracy by so called leaders of the party against the party. This is a conspiracy to kill APC in this state and you are supporting it,” Onwusi said.
Speaking in a similar vein, Ojielo Ikemefuna, the Vice Chairman of APC in Udi LGA rejected the results, saying he was sure that some PDP bigwigs sponsored people to kill APC in the State.
But Okechukwu who was witnessed the declaration of the results, said he would continue to support President Muhammadu Buhari.
“Before the primary elections, a young girl from one of the security agencies came to me and said Ekweremadu penetrated the top echelon of our party and said he would want anybody to emerge as APC candidate except Osita Okechukwu. We will support Ayogu Eze and follow due process of our appeal panel,” he said.
Responding, chairman of the committee, Prof. Momoh urged aggrieved members not to be embittered to the point of wishing the party poor performance in 2019.
“Put together what you have, make it available to the State chairman of the party as well as the NWC. Let us resolve all issues in a legal manner, through the appropriate channels in the party,” he said.
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