A candidate for the Abia State Central senatorial ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Rep Sam Onuigbo, has urged those sponsoring media attacks on him to come clean on their roles in the whimsical allocation of votes during the May 18 senatorial primary of the party.
He noted that the sting of truth has stunned the architects of the ballot bazaar, which took place during the botched senatorial primary, stressing that as a result, the guilty have suddenly become afraid that their clandestine activities against APC are coming to light.
Onuigbo, who was responding to a media report dismissing the petition by well-meaning stakeholders of the APC in Abia Central senatorial district against the jumbled APC primary in the zone, urged the sponsors of the media reports to stop orchestrating further damage to the image and reputation of the APC in the Southeast.
Recall that a group, which described itself as the leaders of the Abia Central chapter of APC, had written a petition captioned: ‘Calculated Campaign of Falsehood’, and addressed to the National Chairman of the party, Prof Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, alleging that Onuigbo’s claims of irregularities in the primary were aimed at destabilizing the party ahead of the 2027 general election.
But, in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja yesterday, Onuigbo, who is a former two-term member of the House of Representatives and sponsor of Nigeria’s Climate Change Act, challenged the authors of the petition to prove the veracity of the magic figures donated to the three contestants in the aborted Abia Central Senatorial primary.
He tasked the shadowy patrons of media attacks against him to do themselves a favour by assisting the APC National Working Committee (NWC) to make sense of the vote numbers that donated 36, 935 ballots to a single contestant in a fictional contest that two others gathered 11, 457 and 5, 833 votes.
As a result of the scandalous hijack of the primary election process, a ranking member of the sixth and seventh Senate, Senator Nkechi Nwaogu, petitioned the national leadership of APC, noting that it was insulting that she had to wait for the entire day without any official coming to her Osisioma Ngwa Ward 2, or anywhere in the entire Osisioma Ngwa Local Government Area to conduct the senatorial primary.
“This shameful conduct by a few overzealous individuals in the Abia Central senatorial primary has cost the APC not only in terms of reputation, but also the structural harmony existing in the party. For instance, as we speak, Senator Nwaogu has left APC out of the vexatious denial of participation in a simple exercise, such as a senatorial primary,” Onuigbo remarked.
While lamenting that some political desperadoes in the Abia State chapter of APC were bent on importing the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) virus of impunity and breach of transparent process into APC, the former lawmaker said it was on account of such rascally behaviour that he joined the APC in his second term at the Green Chamber.
“Let them help the national leadership of our great party make sense of this puzzle: In a senatorial district that has roughly 59, 000 members, how did the architects of the confusion in Abia Central senatorial primary election come about the 36, 935 votes it gifted a single candidate, when no election was held in most wards of the six Local Government Areas that make up the senatorial district?
“The authors of the fabricated results for Abia Central senatorial primary should also tell Nigerians where they got the certificate of return issued to the alleged winner, when the national leadership of the party categorically denied that no such document, except the president’s certificate of return, was printed,” Onuigbo demanded.
He regretted that instead of doing anything positive to promote and project APC in Abia State and Abia Central senatorial district, the enemies of due process resorted to the damaging confusion that has made the party in the state a laughing stock.
“I wish to encourage the leaders of our great party to painstakingly get to the roots of the confusion that engulfed the conduct of Abia Central senatorial primary election, as well as the reputation damage caused by those who hijacked the process for their narrow interest,” Onuigbo added.
“Again, we want to unequivocally sound this warning to the President and Commander in-Chief and all the anti-corruption related agencies that if Nigerians are not abreast with the findings of all corruption cases against Beta Edu within five days, we will take to the streets to demand within the confines of the law that the right thing be done.”
