•Allegations spurious, unfounded -State Chairman
By Jude Opara, Abuja
More facts have emerged indicating that there is no credible evidence in the claims that the February 17 Edo state governorship primary election was marred by alleged $1.25 million bribes which allegedly forced the National Working Committee, NWC, of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to cancel the result.
This is just as the Edo state acting Chairman of the APC, Emperor Jarrett Tenebe who was neck deep in the exercise dismissed the bribery claims as “spurious and unfounded”
Relying on sources accounts earlier volunteered to reporters, which are now reverified to be unreliable, media reports, including of Peoples Daily, last Thursday carried that the NWC might have canceled the exercise which had reportedly produced three candidates all claiming to have won the primary election.
The sources also claimed in the story that an alleged bribe of $1.25 million suspected to have been given to some members of the NWC by two of the aspirants who purchased the nomination forms for the primary might have motivated the party to cancel the exercise and order another primary.
However, on the strength of more credible findings gathered afterwards, the sources’ claims of bribery in the said primaries have proved to be unsubstantiated and lacked merit.
Our checks have shown that there is no credible evidence in the claims by the sources that money had exchanged hands, let alone necessitating the alleged cancellation of the said primary election.
Also found to be unreliable is the sources’ claims in the report that ‘one of the aspirants gave out the sum of $250,000 dollars which was shared by four people with each of them getting $75,000, while the other one apparently very rich increased the sum to a staggering $1million dollars’ allegedly collected by some aides of the affected party chieftains on their behalf.
An authoritative insider in the know informed our reporter in confidence that the said source who volunteered the unsubstantiated information was probably aggrieved because his favoured candidate in the primary election did not scale through.
“We suspect that those who gave that misinformation did so based on their emotions of anger because the primary did not favour the candidate they backed.
“They perhaps wanted to give everybody a bad name just to rubbish the process and the officials.
“Politics should not be a do-or-die affair where you want to drag everybody down just because your candidate did not emerge victorious, or to give out incorrect information to the media just to smear the reputation of party leaders”, the insider said.
He called on the general public to disregard the allegation of bribery, saying it never existed, describing it as “the figment of the imagination of the sources” who originated the story.
Elsewhere, the acting Chairman of the APC in Edo state, Emperor Jarrett Tenebe has described as “unreasonable and unfortunate” the insinuations in certain quarters that members of the NWC were bribed by some aspirants who participated in the just concluded primary election.
Reacting to the issue in an interview with our correspondent, Tenebe who was an active participant in the build up to the primaries said for anyone to have made such allegations shows that they were of questionable character themselves because the NWC as presently constituted is made up of men and women of proven impeccable character.
The state chairman also said he was never bothered when spurious and unfounded allegations fly about because it is usually those who have dirty intentions that will peddle such lies.
“There is no iota of truth in such unfounded and stupid allegations because, firstly the members of the NWC of the APC are men of proven integrity who also have a track record of where they are coming from. Is it the National Chairman who is a former governor or the National Secretary who is a former Senator and lawyer of repute that you will induce?
“For anybody to say that the NWC was forced with inducement to cancel the first exercise of February 17 is absurd. In fact, they didn’t cancel the election, they only went back to conclude it because the exercise was abandoned midway into the collation when thugs disrupted the process. They only went to complete the process, that is why the same people went back to complete it from where they stopped. The chairman of the committee, Governor Hope Uzodinma had an engagement, that is why his deputy, Governor Bassey Otu went and completed the process.
“So for anyone to say that the NWC was induced is an insult on the personalities on the NWC. There is nobody that could have given money to any member of the NWC, this I know very well.
“In fact, they also accused us in Edo state of collecting money, that is why they went and destroyed the state Secretariat of our party, we don’t have a secretariat right now, they destroyed the place and burnt it down with the clumsy and stupid talk that were refusing to accept the result that produced Hon. Dennis Idahosa, alleging that we collected bribes”.
According to the chairman, what prompted the NWC to call for the continuation of the exercise was after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) came out to state that they only monitored the election that produced Sen. Monday Okpebholo.
He added:“But because the APC especially under Dr. Abdulahi Ganduje is a party that upholds rule of law, they decided that the primary was actually inconclusive, because the designated place for the collation and announcement of results was where we were before the thugs came and disrupted the exercise.
“It is an insult and idiotic for anyone to have contemplated such a thing. In fact, the NWC ensured that they did a transparent exercise and I insist that the APC Edo state governorship primary election is the freest and fairest I have ever seen in the country”.
Tenebe therefore urged the NWC not to lose sleep over such unfounded accusations, saying it only shows that the leadership of the ruling party was doing well and that such darts should be expected either from within or outside the party.
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