Tension In PDP, As Aspirants Head To Court

…Declare Sunday’s primaries illegal

…Party risk fielding gov’ship candidate

By Tony Ukpong

Except urgent and pragmatic steps are taken by the hierarchy of the PDP in Abuja, the party may find it difficult to conduct nomination into the office of the governor in Akwa Ibom state.

Very reliable but unconfirmed sources within the PDP confided in this reporter that, while the Sunday primaries in to the state house of Assembly and that of the House of Representatives were going on in various constituencies, some aggrieved Governorship among other aspirants were busy briefing their lawyers to set a legal machinery in motion to stop the remaining two elections, namely, that of Senate and Governor forthwith.

My findings have revealed that the aggrieved parties are challenging the legality of yesterday’s primaries which a good number of the aspirants were conspicuously absent. It was further gathered that, since there was a pending issue in an Abuja High court, challenging the conduct of the Ad-hoc primaries previously, it will be contemptuous for them to partake in such exercise which they tagged an act of illegality.

For instance, Rt.Hon. Onofiok Luke, governorship hopeful and aspirants into the state and national assemblies were equally absent at yesterday’s primaries elections across the state. The palpable fear pervading the PDP in the state presently is that, if by chance the parties in the matter successfully file an injunction to declare the primaries

Null and void, where lies the possibility of PDP getting out of this legal trap between now and June 3,2023,which INEC has fixed as the deadline for party primaries. Recall that, apart from the Ad-hoc matter in court, the aggrieved parties also picked some legal loopholes in the conduct of yesterday’s House of Representatives primaries where both the ad-hoc and statutory delegates allegedly voted in the exercise.

One of the Governorship aspirants, who pleaded anonymity disclosed that he will rather die than refuse to fight the perceived illegality to last pint of his blood. In most constituencies i visited, there was voting apathy even as they were treated the Nigeria’s way.

It was not clear the type of punishment these aspirants intend to met out to those who failed to turn up for the exercise after collecting money for job not delivered. The was conducted with utmost speed across the state with heavy security.