Delta South APC primaries: Four Senatorial Aspirants Protest Exclusion
OUR All Progressives Congress, APC, senatorial aspirants in Delta South, have kicked against their exclusion from the primary election without reason despite meeting all the requirements. They have urged the party’s hierarchy to address the issue urgently.
The aspirants, Temisan Omatseye, Chief Michael Johnny, Evans Omatsoguwa, and AVM Omatsola Okorodudu (retd), in a statement, yesterday, described the Delta South senatorial primaries as a sham, noting that they paid the sum of N7million being the cost for the expression of interest and nomination forms, picked and filled nomination forms and followed every process before embarking on electioneering campaign. They decried their exclusion from the primary election. They said:
“We, the undersigned, being members of the APC and having paid N7million being cost of expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the Delta South senatorial district primary election, would like to draw the attention of the President, members of the APC worldwide and Nigerians at large, to the unfortunate incident in our party most especially as it relates to the recently conducted sham called senatorial primaries that took place in Oleh, Delta State.
“Based on the electoral guidelines as issued by the APC NWC, we took it upon ourselves to pay for and collected the expression of interest and nomination forms, filled out same and submitted to the Director of Administration of the APC and all these were duly acknowledged.
The aspirants, Temisan Omatseye, Chief Michael Johnny, Evans Omatsoguwa, and AVM Omatsola Okorodudu (retd), in a statement, yesterday, described the Delta South senatorial primaries as a sham, noting that they paid the sum of N7million being the cost for the expression of interest and nomination forms, picked and filled nomination forms and followed every process before embarking on electioneering campaign. They decried their exclusion from the primary election. They said:
“We, the undersigned, being members of the APC and having paid N7million being cost of expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the Delta South senatorial district primary election, would like to draw the attention of the President, members of the APC worldwide and Nigerians at large, to the unfortunate incident in our party most especially as it relates to the recently conducted sham called senatorial primaries that took place in Oleh, Delta State.
“Based on the electoral guidelines as issued by the APC NWC, we took it upon ourselves to pay for and collected the expression of interest and nomination forms, filled out same and submitted to the Director of Administration of the APC and all these were duly acknowledged.
“We were all invited for screening at Abuja and were all screened by the team appointed by the NWC and chaired by former Senate President Ken Nnamani, on September 21, 2018 in Abuja.
“Based on the oral discussion during the screening process, we were informed that our certificates to confirm us as being cleared to contest for the primaries would be forwarded to us before the conduct of the primaries. On the basis of that communication, we all set out to our various locations to continue with our campaigns scheduled for October 2, 2018.
“There was no further communication from the APC national headquarters to all the undersigned and based on this we proceeded to the election venue on the said October 2, 2018. While at the venue we were informed that a publication had been released by the APC that only one person had been cleared to contest the primary election and that we the remaining four contestants had been technically disqualified by the APC.
“Having spent from 8a.m., to 6p.m., at the venue, we were again informed through the social media that the APC had postponed all senatorial primaries to October 3, 2018 at 9a.m. Once again the party did not deem it fit, out of courtesy, to communicate same to all aspirants.”
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