Amid the raging crisis rocking the Edo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress over the mode of primary to be used in the conduct of its June 22 governorship primary, the Independent National Electoral Commission has said it will only honour the mode of primary submitted to it by the national chairman of the party.
The INEC National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said in Abuja that the commission’s rules, regulations and laws allowed it to only relate with the national chairman and national secretary of political parties.
He stressed that regardless of what was happening in state branches of parties, the commission would only recognise the date, venue and mode of primary submitted to it by the two national officers.
The two factions of APC in the state had been at each other’s throat over the mode of primary to be adopted to pick the party’s candidate for the September 19 governorship election.
The National Chairman of the party, Adams Oshiomhole, said to be in the same camp with the factional chairman of the party in the state, David Imuse, had insisted that the party would use direct primary to select its candidate.
Oshiomhole, believed to be opposed to the reelection of Governor Godwin Obaseki, had also gone ahead to write INEC via a letter dated May 19, 2020, stating that the party had chosen direct primary for the selection of its candidate for the election.
But the state chairman of the party, Anselm Ojezua, said to be supporting Obaseki, had said the party’s State Working Committee chose indirect primary. He explained that the National Executive Council of the party had said each state was at liberty to adopt any method of preference. Ojezua accused the NWC, headed by Oshiomhole, of imposing the direct primary on the state as a means to oust Obaseki from the race.
Meanwhile, to counter the letter written by Oshiomhole to INEC that the party would do direct primary, the governor, in a gazette signed on May 28 and published on Friday, banned political gatherings that could make direct primary possible in the state. Obaseki insisted that by virtue of the gazette, only direct primary could be held in the state and in only one location.
However, following the altercation and rising tension over which mode of primary INEC would recognise for the APC in the state, Okoye told Sunday PUNCH in Abuja , that the law only allowed the commission to relate with the national chairman and national secretary when it pertained to party primaries.
Credit: The PUNCH
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