Some of the aspirants who were disqualified by the Senator Hope Uzodimma screening committee ahead of the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary fixed for Friday have rejected the outcome of the process.
The six-man committee had cleared only four of the contenders for the race while it disqualified 12. Those cleared were the incumbent governor, Yahaya Bello, Hassan Abdullahi, Engineer Abubakar Bashir and Ekele Aishat Blessing.
Eight of the aspirants addressed a media briefing in Abuja last night where they dismissed the report of the Senator Uzodimma panel as a charade.
In attendance were Professor Seidu Onailo, Hadiza Ibrahim, Alhaji Sani Lullu, Yakubu Mohammed, Mohammed Abubakar Audu, General Patrick Akpa, Read Admiral Jubrin Usman and Babatunde Irukera.
Barrister Irukera spoke on behalf of other aggrieved aspirants.
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He told newsmen that the whole screening process was predetermined to achieve a one-horse race which was the emergence of a fresh ticket for Governor Yahaya Bello. He dismissed the process as an ambush as he noted that they knew about their disqualification through the social media while the appeal panel which gave its venue as Barcelona Hotel, a stone throw from the party national secretariat nowhere to be located.
He dropped the hint that aggrieved aspirants and delegates might seek redress in court to challenge the outcome of the screening committee report.
He said: “People are in dilemma, not knowing whether their candidate is on the ballot or not. The handling of the process is wrong. We lost everything in Zamfara as a result of procedural error. We should toe the path of caution and prudence to avoid catastrophic losses.
There will certainly be an unintended consequence because it is difficult to tell people not to enforce their rights.
The people out there who have aggregated their choice in us, to eliminate those choices from those people is grievous.
Our primary might be a one-horse race.
“My strict interpretation of cleared or not cleared means we are still in the race. In the absence of that, we are determined to challenge the party in court. Leaving the APC isn’t an option. I don’t have the intention of going anywhere else, because there is no credible alternative.
” The August primary is compromised. Even if the clearance comes tomorrow morning, the momentum is lost.
Every aspirant, every delegate is a potential plaintiff, and there is no way people won’t seek redress.
The action might not be from any of the aspirants but party delegates. The option open to APC is to reverse itself. It shouldn’t narrow the process by disenfranchising people.”
Former director of the defunct Newswatch magazine, Yakubu Mohammed accused spoke in a similar vein as he submitted that some of the reasons given by the Senator Uzodimma committee gave it out as working to ensure that the primary was a one-horse race for Governor Bello.
” What I found strange is the campaign by the chairman of the committee to campaign for the sitting governor. If they have made up their minds, why waste our time.? As an incumbent, he deserves a second term but that depends on performance and his empathy with the people. This man is owing salary and I wonder why we are blessed with a man like that. Internal democracy and party supremacy is in jeopardy here.
It will amount to naivety to assume that because APC won the presidential election, it will retain Kogi with Yahaya Bello.”