APGA primaries: Aggrieved aspirants protest imposition of candidate in Anambra

MORE has not been heard on the recent party primaries conducted across the States, as protests trail the Anambra State House of Assembly over the primary held last week under the All Progressives Grand Alliance(APGA).

The aggrieved aspirants led by Governor Obianos’ aide, Honourable Tony-Uche Ezekwelu, said they were protesting against what they described as the improper conduct and a plot to impose one of the aspirants, Chuka Ezenwune on them in the just concluded House of Assembly primary in the State to choose a candidate for Idemili South Local Government area in the State, yesterday.

Tony-Uche Ezekwelu, who is Governor Willie Obiano’s Senior Special Assistant on Youth Mobilisation in company of other seven House of Assembly aspirants and several stakeholders from the council area carried placards with inscriptions such as: ‘Say no imposition of candidate in Idemili South’, ‘APGA says no to Ezenwune’, ‘With Ezenwune, APGA will fail in Idemili South’, among others.

Chanting solidarity songs, they matched to the All Progressives Grand Alliance(APGA) State secretariat and to the Anambra State government house, to register their grievances, and later handed over a petition on the issue to the Governor.

Part of their petition which was signed by the party stakeholders and seven aspirants reads in part: “Hon Ezenwune, having failed woefully in all the indices of legislative performance as our representative, lacks moral justification standing to continue to represent us. He never hosted any single constituency town hall meeting.

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“He never consulted his constituents in any matter pertaining our constituency and he takes unilateral decisions on our behalf without involving us in any way.

“He personally appropriates our constituency funds and projects to himself without any verifiable project in any of the twelve wards in Idemili South apart from the open shade in Afo Nnobi market and he never empowered any party faithful or continents in Idemili South and thus lacks the goodwill required of a winning candidate.”

The protest letter entitled, SOS: Rejection of Hon Fabian Chuka Ezenwune as our 2019 House of Assembly Candidate-a vote of no confidence, further noted, “Ezenwune failed as a lawmaker representing the constituency in the past four years, as they alleged that Ezenwune embezzled and misappropriated N10 million meant for security and ward stakeholders mobilization during November 18 governorship election in the State.

The, however,r appealed to the party leadership to consider their request for a good candidate for the constituency, insisting that they will accept any other aspirant, than Ezenwune.

They were received at APGA Secretariat by the State treasurer of the party, Mr Tony Nwakile while Gov Willie Obiano received them at the government House.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Political matters, Hon Ifeatu Obiokoye who received them on behalf of the Governor assured that their complaints would be looked into, just as he advised them to ignore any information gotten from the social media, which he argued that it could be misleading.

He said: “We shall resolve whatever problem you have in Idemili South to continue our winning streak in the area.”