Ebonyi state All Progressive Congress (APC) chairman, Stanley Okoro Emegha has said that he would do everything within his capacity to ensure that the Governor of the state, David Umahi wins the Ebonyi south senatorial seat in 2023.
Emegha made this disclosure while addressing pressmen in Abakaliki the Ebonyi state capital on Thursday.
He heaped praises on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for publishing the name of the governor David Umahi as the party’s authentic senatorial candidate of the APC for Ebonyi south senatorial zone.
“There was no time the excos of APC in Ebonyi were panicking about the releases of names of the candidates by INEC because we followed do processes. And as such, those that emerged were the people that the members of the party in their various wards, constituencies and senatorial districts voted for, to go and contest in the forthcoming general election, come 2023.
“Since due processes were followed, we were not panicking about the commitment of the national leadership of APC to upload the names of those that emerged or that it will go the other way.
“The governor’s name, David Umahi has finally been enlisted by INEC as the authentic senatorial candidate of APC in Ebonyi south zone. Some people said that the name of the governor was imputed through a Court order. Yes, what that simply means, is that the court mandated that the re-conduction of the Ebonyi south senatorial Primary election by APC that took place at Afikpo North LGA headquarters be obeyed, and that’s why INEC, noted that it is by court order.
“Court ruled that the party should re-conduct that primary election, it was done and Umahi won. And so, we all can attest that such a ruling came, and we followed the due process. We obeyed that court order. We went back to the venue at the fixed date and re-conducted that election. He said
Emegha also used the occassion to address the speculations making the rounds that the party used a different delegate list to conduct the re-run senatorial election in the state.
Some contestants were edged out as a result of the delegation list used for the re-run senatorial election.
According to him: “It is not the national leadership of the APC that approves the delegate list. The only thing that the national leadership of APC does is to give you forms. The delegates were 3 by wards and 5 per local government area. When the form is given to you, you pay it directly to the national leadership of APC. The delegates didn’t purchase the form and then paid it to the state account, they paid it to the national account.
“The national constituted a committee that came to Ebonyi and conducted the delegates’ election, and then the committee reported back to the national, those delegates that won during the congresses, were the names of people that the committee gave to us.
“The allegation that we used a different delegate list, is false. Nobody can say that we used a different delegate list to conduct our primary election. The woman who is opposing the election, why didn’t she come? She backed out from the primary election of the APC, even when she knew that the court has ordered that Ebonyi south senatorial primary election be re-conducted.
“She wanted to scuttle the Ebonyi south senatorial primary election by trying to get court injection but it didn’t work for her. And now, she is coming back to say that a different delegate list was used.
“The court said that we should go and re-conducted the Ebonyi south senatorial primary election. It didn’t say ‘go and change the delegates list’. It wasn’t me that conducted the primary election, the national leadership of APC had to send the people that came and re-conducted the Ebonyi south senatorial zone primary election. The people that came to re-conduct the election, came with the delegates list” he stressed