INEC Rejects Tonye Cole, APC List For Rivers …Amosun, Okorocha Bomb Oshiomole Again As Mass Defection From APC Looms

As political parties struggled last night to meet the deadline set by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the submission of lists of governorship and House of Assembly candidates for next year’s general election, efforts of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to submit its list of candidates from Rivers State for the elections were rebuffed by the electoral body.
The National Working Committee of the ruling party had, in a statement issued last Thursday night, vowed to submit its list of candidates for Rivers State, saying that last Monday’s judgment of the Supreme Court had no bearing on its congresses.
An INEC source, however, told our source that the electoral body told the APC officials who came to submit the party’s list of candidates for next year’s elections to hold on to its Forms C00I and C002 on nominations from Rivers State pending the commission’s receipt and interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment.
The judgment of the apex court delivered last Monday had set aside the ruling of the Court of Appeal, Port Harcourt Division, which vacated a stay order made by a Rivers State High Court against the conduct of APC congresses in the state.
Delivering the ruling on the interlocutory appeal, Justice Centus Nweze held that the decision of the Court of Appeal was in error.
Nweze said the lower court was compelled to be guided by the judgments of the apex court, adding that the panel had to follow the law before arriving at its decision.
It was gathered that Justice Chinwendu Nworgu of the State High Court, on October 11, delivering judgment on a substantive suit instituted by Ibrahim Umar and 12 other members of the Rivers State APC challenging their exclusion from the party’s congresses, the court voided the list of candidates and sacked the state party executive.
The INEC source further revealed that the APC submitted no list of candidates for elective offices from Zamfara State for next year’s general election.
INEC, in a memo “Failure To Conduct Party Primaries in Zamfara State Within The Stipulated Time Frame,” signed by its acting secretary, Okechukwu Ndeche, earlier addressed to the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, notified the APC that it would not be eligible to field candidates in Zamfara State as the commission noted that the APC failed to conduct primaries.
But in its reaction, the APC NWC, in a letter dated October 10, 2018 and addressed to Mr Ndeche, claimed the ruling party’s candidates emerged through consensus, not primary.
Oshiomhole further claimed in his response to INEC that aspirants for elective offices on its platform in the state agreed to produce candidates through a consensus arrangement which he said was affirmed by delegates after what he called “intense horse-trading.”
For the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), an official of the party sighted at International Conference Centre, Abuja, where INEC was collecting the lists, said the party did not have to wait until Friday (yesterday) to submit its list of candidates.
“We started submission after the publication of list of presidential and National Assembly candidates. We didn’t wait for all the forms to come. As they come, we bring them. That’s why you did not see a crowd here,” he said.
The official, who craved anonymity, confided in our official that INEC insisted on list from the faction led by Adebayo Dayo in the Ogun State chapter of the main opposition party.
Checks revealed that 38 political parties have since submitted lists of their candidates.
INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, told newsmen last night that there would be no extension of the deadline.
Meanwhile, the controversy over the governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Ogun and Imo States continued, yesterday, as Governor Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun) and Mr Uche Nwosu, an in-law of Governor Rochas Okorocha (Imo), attacked the National Chairman of the ruling party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Okorocha, Amosun and Oshiomhole Amosun said Oshiomhole lacked respect for truth and decency while Nwosu vowed to recover his ‘mandate’.
“My mandate is still intact”, Nwosu said, citing a court order in his favour, stopping the APC from submitting the name of any person other than his, as the governorship candidate of the party for the 2019 election in Imo State, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The APC leadership had, on Friday, submitted the name of Senator Hope Uzodimma to the electoral body as the party’s governorship candidate for the 2019 election in Imo, while also submitting the name of Prince Dapo Abiodun as the candidate for Ogun State as against Hon Adekunle Akinlade supported by Governor Amosun. Same day, Oshiomhole attacked the Ogun governor, likening him to an emperor who wanted to manipulate the party primaries to his advantage.
Similarly, ahead of the November 9 deadline for publication of particulars of governorship and state Houses of Assembly candidates by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, there appears to be more headache for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC over what sources see as ‘’looming mass defection.’’
National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, weekend, were at daggers drawn over the latter’s comments that five million members had left the APC since Oshiomhole mounted the saddle of leadership.
With a sizeable chunk of the APC governors ‘losing out’’ in the quest to get their candidates at various levels to fly the party’s tickets, some of them are said to chewing various options to realise their ambitions.
Disturbed by the scenario and a brewing threat to his re-election plans, President Muhammadu Buhari, last week, met with aggrieved APC aspirants at the Presidential Villa, Abuja to assuage their grievances. Pleading with them to remain with the ruling party, President Buhari told them the implication of returning the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to power.
At the weekend, some of the aggrieved aspirants especially those who sought for the presidential ticket said the president’s peace moves yielded little or no dividends. Indeed, the APC is yet to resolve the issues it is having in Ogun, Ondo, Zamfara, Imo, Cross River, Delta, Rivers, Kaduna, and Adamawa states, and there are indications that aggrieved candidates may leave the party.
Governors Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun and Okorocha of Imo, in the last one week have been criticising Oshiomhole over his handling of the outcome of the primaries and alleged substitution of governorship candidates endorsed by both governors. In the case of Imo, the matter is already in court with Okorocha insisting that his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu must remain as the APC governorship candidate in Imo. As it is, some of APC governors and party leaders already have options to fly the flag of other parties.
A South-West governor is said to have obtained tickets for some of his loyalists in rival parties. Piqued by developments in the party, Amosun had claimed of the existence of a cabal directing the affairs of the party at the national headquarters.
Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State at a stage attacked Oshiomhole for imposing candidates while at the peak of the controversies over the primaries in Zamfara, Governor Abdulaziz Yari threatened that he could not guarantee safety of National primary panel sent by Oshiomhole, if they come to Zamfara State.
From unlikely quarters, wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari also slammed Oshiomhole for impunity, selfishness and high-handedness in the conduct of the primaries, especially in Adamawa where her brother, Dr. Mahmood Halilu Ahmed, lost out in the battle for the APC governorship ticket.
Beginning with November 9, the aggrieved governors want to ensure that the names of their endorsed candidates are published by INEC as governorship and state House of Assembly candidates.
If that fails, they want to ensure that the APC played to their dictates using the November 17, 2018 window (last day for withdrawal by presidential and National Assembly candidates (s)/replacement of withdrawn candidates(s) by political parties. For governorship and state House of Assembly candidates the last day for replacement is December 1, 2018.
Thus, as the date for final substitution inches closer, some aggrieved governors are said to be weighing various options.
The options include: working from within the APC for opposition candidates; and fielding candidates in other parties to contest against those allegedly ‘imposed’ by Oshiomhole.
If the aggrieved governorship, national and state assembly aspirants and their backers explore these options, it may hurt President Buhari at the poll, a reason he embarked on peace moves, last week.