Another aspirant who claimed to have won the All Progressives Congress governorship ticket in Saturday’s primary election in Edo State, Senator Monday Okpebholo, on Tuesday called on the party to issue him his certificate of return.
Okpebholo’s demand comes barely 24 hours after a similar request was made at the party secretariat by one of the three aspirants, Anamero Dekeri, who was controversially announced as the winner of the shadow election.
Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the primary, Governor Hope Uzodimma, had announced Dennis Idahosa as the winner, while returning officer, Stanley Ugboaja, declared Monday Okpebholo as the winner.
Elsewhere, Ojo Babatunde, who claimed to be representing the returning officers in all the local governments declared Dekeri as the winner of the election.
Reacting a day after Dekeri presented a letter to the National Chairman of APC, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, demanding his certificate, the senator also wrote to the Appeal Committee of the ruling party requesting the same, having emerged winner of the contest with over 12,000 of the 24,000 accredited voters.
In the letter sighted by our correspondent, the Edo Central lawmaker explained how the elections committee constituted by the National Working Committee led by the Chief State Electoral Officer and Returning Officer, Dr Stanley Ugboaja, successfully conducted the polls.
The letter partly read, “My humble appeal to your respected committee is to look at the facts that I have presented and affirm them as cogent and verifiable, apply the relevant provisions of the law guiding our primary elections, and uphold the result collated, signed and announced, and proceed with the official process by issuing me the Certificate of Declaration as the Winner of the 2024 Edo State Gubernatorial Primary Election.
“I have implicit confidence in the integrity of your committee to uphold the rule of law, fairness, equity, justice and regards to due process of the law, which are the hallmarks of democratic governance driven by internal party democracy.”
Continuing, Okpebholo alleged that the results announced by Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State were not a true reflection of what happened at the poll.
According to him, the final tally of the results as duly declared by the state chief electoral officer showed that he scored 12,145 votes to defeat his closest rival, Dennis Idahosa, who scored 5,536 votes.
“Despite the free, fair and credible process which preceded my being declared the winner of the primary election, information has reached me that Uzodinma who was not mandated to function as the Chief Electoral Officer/Returning Officer for the election has declared Dennis Idahosa as winner of the election claiming to be acting on the fictitious result received from one Mr. Charity Amayanvbo, a known political associate of my defeated opponent.
“Mr Amayanvbo is not a party official and was never appointed to collate results on behalf of the party. Rather, the party’s collation officials for the election are well known and published in a release signed by the party’s National Organising Secretary, Sulaiman Mohammad Argungu.
“It is most unfortunate that HE. Hope Uzodinma failed woefully to work within reasons and rationality and consequently exposed our great party to ridicule and opprobrium by releasing fictitious figures in an election that he failed, refused and neglected to even visit the designated collation centre throughout the exercise,” he stated.
