– Party Leaders Grumble
-Aspirants Claim Unaware Of Venue, Date of Exercise
Contrary to a recent directive that his party, the All Progressive Congress APC, should use the consensus arrangement in choosing candidates for the Imo local government election scheduled to hold on September, 21, 2024, the Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma and his party, have in what many described as strange,undemocratice, handpicked candidates for the 27 local government areas in state.
A party source who does not want his name in print told this reporter that “Governor Uzodinma used his orchestrated consensus arrangement to pull a fast one on the leaders of the party who were busy holding meetings aimed at harmonizing and choosing the right candidates not knowing that the Governor already mandated his loyalists to organize what many described as a Kangaroo primary where his choice aspirants in the 27 local government councils emerged as the party’s candidates against the wish of the people and the detriment of the popular aspirants who had already spent so much on campaign, mobilization and in reaching out to the leaders of the party in their areas”.
A distraught chairmanship aspirant who was almost shedding tears of disappointment, said, “I was at home with my family when some of my supporters called to ask if I was aware that the primary election was going on and I said no and started wondering why such an important exercise was held without prior information to those concerned. Where was the primary held, and who voted for those who purportedly emerged? My grouse is that the Governor ought to have told us from the onset that he intends using the Sole Administrators (SOLADs) as Executive Chairman, instead of cunningly allowing us to spend huge sums of money on forms, campaign, etc only to be thrown off balance at the last minute, despite our expenses. Some of which were borrowed at very great cost”.
Investigation also reveals that most of those who emerged as candidates who are not members of the APC bought forms secretly and did not participate in the screening exercise. Hence, they are legally ineligible.
It was gathered that though most of them are neither known nor liked by the electorate, what actually gave them an edge is that they held a meeting with the Governor and members of his kitchen cabinet where they accepted all the Governor’s terms and conditions. But uptill now, the list of the aspirants has not been made public. That is why we are waiting for him to make it public to enable us study the situation and decide on the next line of action.
We also want to know if this is what the Governor actually means by the “Ben Johnson” approach at the local government level”.
He noted that, it is this kind of undue imposition of unpopular candidates that led to the unrest in Isiala Mbano LGA and culminated in the unavoidable loss of lives and destruction of properties at the council headquarters.
