An aspirant for the upcoming Edo governorship election under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party, Anselm Ojezua, has revealed reasons why PDP may risk its candidate in the state governorship election.
He said that the party risked not producing a candidate for the election over irregularities.
Speaking in an interview on Tuesday in Abuja, the legal luminary stressed that his assertion was based on the irregularities that marred the primary election of the ad-hoc delegates two weeks ago, where some of them were not allowed into the venue of the election.
He said that the development would be bad for Governor Godwin Obaseki, given his past disputes within and outside the party.
The former APC chairman in Edo said it was at the meeting that he and other aggrieved aspirants convinced the PDP appeal committee of the illegalities perpetrated.
“The appeal committee met us, and it was at that meeting that we were able to convince them that what happened was a sham. The chairman of the appeal committee confronted us with the result sheets, which we were seeing for the very first time, which we should have seen before the exercise, but it never happened.
“It never happened because the national organising secretary of the party, Alhaji Umar, had sent those materials directly to the Edo Government House,” he said.
Ojezua also said the chairman of the election committee, Governor Peter Mbah, turned himself into an observer rather than the election supervisor, according to Peoples Gazette.
“I said that he misconceived his assignment; rather than being the one to conduct the election, he came to observe, and after observing, he made a comment. But he forgot that it was his responsibility to meet with us even before the process started. It was his responsibility to deploy the officers that were given to him to work with.”
He continued, “All these were done in his absence before he arrived. Even when he arrived, he was made to sign result sheets as if he were the one who conducted those elections concurrently in 192 locations. We pointed out those anomalies to the appeal committee, and they were quite surprised.
“Again, they were also shocked that there was no stakeholders’ meeting before the commencement of the process. That is why we said that the process was compromised even before they started.
“In view of that, the PDP stands the risk of not producing a candidate based on the irregularities. I can tell you with confidence that should they not allow common sense to prevail, PDP will end up not having a candidate in this election.”
