The All Progressives Congress, APC, Imo North Senatorial primary election has taken another dimension after the APC, Screening committee, led by Lawrence Chuku, made a volt-face that his committee after screening the eleven aspirants, did not clear the alleged winner of the senatorial candidate of the party, Frank Ibezim and five others.
The decision came few days after the primary election was concluded and a winner emerged through the Senator Ajimbola Bashiru, APC, election panel that produced Ibezim.
However, it was gathered in Owerri, that both camps of Senator Rochas Okorocha and Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, are in excitement.
Their supporters said that the Ibezim’s disqualification has brought a ray of hope towards Araraume becoming the next APC, senatorial candidate for Imo North.
The of Okorocha and Araraume camps have been pushing to upturn the primary election that produced Ibezim as the winner of the Imo North APC primary. One of such moves was the declaration of Araraume as the winner of the senatorial primary by the Daniel Nwafor, group.
In what their group described as an achievement was the dramatic disqualification of Ibezim by Chuku.
They alleged that Ibezim’s “educational qualifications, National Youth Service Corps NYSC, certificate and age declaration submitted to his committee are invalid documents.”
But the APC Caretaker Committee/Extra Ordinary Convention Committee led by Yobe state governor, Mai Mala Buni, has dismissed all of these claims by Chuku’s committee.
Buni through the Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, said that it was based on the report clearing all the eleven Imo North APC, senatorial aspirants as submitted to them by Chuku, that the party acted upon and conducted the primary election.
He said, “ahead of the October 31 legislative by-elections scheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the All Progressives Congress (APC) Screening Committees have cleared all aspirants who purchased expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the Party’s Primary Election scheduled for Thursday 3rd, September, 2020.”
However, in a reaction the Director General APC Media in the state, Cajetan Duke has dismissed the story of disqualification as a ruse. Duke insisted that Ibezim won the primary election free and fair.
