The All Progressives Congress (APC) Thursday warned against the declaration of any result from the Anambra Central Senatorial primary election conducted by the party.
A statement signed by the National Secretary of the party, Mai Mala Buni, made available to Qed.ng said “Senator Domingo Obende who was duly appointed by the party to conduct the primaries is yet to declare a final result, hence any other result announced from any quarter is null and void.”
It advised the media and general public to await completion of the exercise.
Media reports had indicated that a five-member screening committee had disqualified former member of the House of Representatives, Uche Ekwunife, from contesting election into the vacant seat of the Anambra Central Senatorial District on the APC platform.
Sharon Ikeazor, a former interim woman leader and founding member of the party in the state, was said to have been chosen as candidate for the election.
The Court of Appeal, sitting in Enugu, had in December declared the Anambra Central senatorial seat vacant and ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct fresh election within 90 days.
The appellate court quashed the earlier ruling of the National Assembly Election Tribunal which ruled that Ekwunife had won the seat in the March 28, 2015 senatorial election, which she contested as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The appeal was filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Victor Umeh.
Following her loss at the Appeal Court, Ekwunife defected to the APC to since the party’s candidate in the March election, Chris Ngige, had been appointed Minister of Labour and the PDP unable to conduct a primary because of the absence of its troubled National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh.
A five member-committee chaired by Osita Okechukwu disqualified Ekwunife because of her “fair-weather” politics.
The screening committee favoured Ikeazor because “her trajectory shows loyalty, perseverance and consistency to the emergence of our progressive party.”
On Ekwunife, the committee noted “our deep concern is her record which showed that she dumps political parties at will, leaving the parties in its wake factionalised – from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), to Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA), back to PDP or vice versa and now to APC.”
