Edo 2024: All PDP guber aspirants except Obaseki’s anointed accuse gov of hijacking primary election process

Nine out of the 10 governorship aspirants on the platform of the People Democratic (PDP), for the forthcoming Edo State governorship election have accused Governor Godwin Obaseki of hijacking the primary election process put together by a panel headed by Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah.

The aspirants are Dr. Earl Osaro Onaiwu, Hon. Philip Shaibu, Hon. Omoregie Ogbeide-Ihama, Anselm U. Ojezua, Hon Felix Akhabue, Amb. Martin Uhomoibhi, Hafia Hadizat Umoru, Hon. Omosede Igbinedion, and Barr. Arthur Esene.

The only aspirant who did not join the protest was a former Managing Director of Sterling Bank, Asue Ighodalo who is believed to be the choice of Governor Obaseki as the candidate to take over from him.
The aspirants, under the auspices of the ‘G-9’, in a press briefing on Sunday, described the state ward congresses ahead of the February 22 primary elections of the party as a nullity.

Spokesperson for the aspirants, Barrister Aselm Ojezua, who addressed the media on behalf of others, said:

“At exactly 12 noon, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu placed a call to Deputy Governor Philip Shaibu that he had just arrived Benin and was awaiting the arrival of Governor Agbu Kefas of Taraba.

“He, however, asked to meet all 10 aspirant as stakeholders for briefing before commencing the congresses. Up until now, at 5pm, 9 out of 10 aspirant have yet to hear from Governor Peter Mba and his team.

“They are in Edo State Government House, allegedly filling original result sheets. Nine out of 10 Edo PDP governorship aspirants had no access to the 5-man panel with two state governors as members. No congresses done in Edo State,” Ojezua lamented.

“We want to put it on record that this is perhaps one of the worst attempts that PDP has made to organise primaries in this country.

READ ALSO:Obaseki betraying me because he wants to play godfather —Dep Gov, Shaibu

“We noticed a sharp change of what was customary and traditional in PDP since 1998 and we raised issues with the National Working Committee (NWC), the acting national chairman, assured us that it will be taken care of and truly we can attest to the fact that they corrected it.

“The National Working Committee resolved that the congresses will be held at the collation centres and each wards and that is how we came back to Benin expecting to meet with the committee that was set up to organise the congresses for the three ad-hoc delegates

“Between Friday and Sunday, we have seen three different ad-hoc electoral committee lists, first was the one that had His Excellency, Seyi Makinde as chairman and Senator Manu as secretary. A day after, we had yet another list with Seyi Makinde as chairman and one Pascal Adigwe as secretary.

“Today, we had yet another list with Peter Mbah as chairman and Pascal Adigwe as secretary. We do know that the first one must have been the one approved by the National Working Committee. We are reliably informed that the National Working Committee has not met since the last time they approved that list. Now, we do not even know which one is which.

“We found that contrary to the list the party sent to INEC, another list was flying around with a prominent list of government officials from the Edo State government to perform very sensitive assignments in relation to this process.

“What is even worse is that the committee has not even arrived in Benin; we were later informed that Makinde has declined his appointment; it was only today we were informed that Governor Mbah is now to take the position of the chairman”, Ojezua lamented.

Meanwhile, the nine governorship aspirants had in a joint letter addressed to the Acting National Chairman and copied to the National Vice Chairman South-South of the party, Chief Dan Orbih, protested the process and compositions of those to conduct the delegates election.

The petition was signed by all nine of them.

The Independent National Electoral Commission fixed September 21, 2024, for the Edo State governorship election.

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