Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) aspirants, who were disqualified from participating in last weekend state assemblies primaries yesterday stormed the party’s national secretariat in Abuja with coffin in protest.
The aspirants, who came with party thugs, carrying empty coffins, blocked the entrance to Wadata Plaza.
Aspirant Davis Saloka, said they were at the PDP secretariat to kick against the “open robbery perpetrated against them by the party.” He told newsmen that about 107 members of the party paid to obtain the nomination forms, but that only 32 whom he claimed were loyalists of Nyesom Wike, were given what he called “dubious clearance,” while the rest of them were disqualified.
“We all
bought forms to participate in the PDP primary election but what we saw was out
of the ordinary. We attended the screening exercise but we did not know our
fate until Friday night when we saw a list pasted, indicating that only 32
persons were cleared to participate in the election.
“We
discovered that those nominated from Wike’s camp were given clearance which
gave them automatic ticket while the rest of us were screened out. The most
annoying thing was that we were not told the reason we were disqualified, and
it is more curious to note that all we saw was a list that was neither signed
nor was on a PDP letter head, but just contained the names of Wike’s boys as
the only ones cleared to participate in the party primary.
“On
Saturday, they just wrote the names of these people and said they were the winners
of the PDP party primary where elections were not held. It is injustice, we
won’t accept it,” he said.
Another aspirant, Jude Nwibie, from Kana Constituency 2 spoke in similar vein and submitted that he was disqualified without any cogent reason.
He further disclosed that he went through the rigour of the screening exercise like his colleagues in accordance with the party’s guideline for the election, but was surprised that the result of the screening exercise was not made public.
He, however, said he was stupefied to see a list of 32 persons pasted a night before the party primary as the cleared aspirants for the race.
“A huge injustice was visited on us by the party just to please Wike an Ikwere man who wants to succeed another Ikwere man.
“Money was collected from us for nomination form but we were prevented from participating in any party primary,” he said.
In a joint petition signed by 31 of the aggrieved aspirants under the aegis of Coalition of Rivers State PDP House of Assembly and National Assembly aspirants, they demanded the dissolution of the Rivers State chapter of the party, led by Felix Obuah and the removal of Deputy National Chairman of the ruling party, Uche Secondus.
source: sun news
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