Onjeh rejects APC senatorial primaries results, wants poll declared inconclusive

Fri, Oct 5, 2018 | By publisher


Politics

Former Students’ union activist and defeated APC aspirant for Benue South Senatorial elections, Mr Daniel Onjeh, has rejected the outcome of the polls conducted in Otukpo on Oct. 3.

Onjeh, who lost to former Benue Deputy Governor, Mr Steve Lawani, in his bid to clinch the party’s ticket to contest in the 2019 general elections, said the polls were marred by irregularities.

In a statement personally signed by him, Onjeh alleged that delegates from his political stronghold, Ohimini Local Government Council, were disenfranchised.

He claimed that the local government had over 300 delegates, who were for him but prevented from voting.

Onjeh said he had always won overwhelmingly in Ohimini and alleged that delegates from there were not allowed to vote.

“In 2015 general elections and the senatorial re-run in 2016, the records show that I won overwhelmingly from the local government council,” he said.

He said the margin of 262 votes was too narrow to declare Lawani winner considering that over 90 councilors who were his supporters had been stopped from voting.

Onjeh also alleged that the list of delegates from Okpokwu and Agatu local government councils, “had been completely ignored and fictitious names substituted to facilitate the casting of fraudulent votes for my opponent”.

“The margin of his purported victory is 262, while over 90 councilors,
who are all my supporters, were not allowed to vote, and the entire Ohimini Local Government , which is my stronghold, had its over 300 delegates disenfranchised, ” he alleged.

Onjeh accused the state chairman of the party, Mr Abba Yaro, of coordinating the attack on the Ado local government chairman for supporting him.

He accused the party’s leadership in the state of manipulating the process in favour of its preferred aspirant.

He claimed he had been approached by top members of the party to drop his aspirations and support their preferred candidate in exchange for a plum appointment at the Federal level.

According to him, his refusal angered them and informed their choice of indirect primaries where the process can be manipulated in favour of their candidate.

Onjeh, therefore, appealed to the national body of the party to declare the election inconclusive on account of the obvious electoral infractions.

Reacting to the allegations, Yaro dismissed them as baseless and appealed to politicians to learn to accept electoral outcomes in good faith.

“The senatorial election was peaceful, transparent, free and fair. Nobody was disenfranchised, there was a list of delegates from Abuja and one of the delegates protested against it and the electoral panel dropped it. I think it was that of Ohimini,” that is what happened.

“The best thing for the aspirant to do is to go to court to challenge the election, if he feels strongly that it was marred,” Yaro said. (NAN)

– Oct. 5, 2018 @ 18:19 GMT |

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