Senator Ohuabunwa expresses shock over nullification of victory

Annie Okonkwo hails cancellation of Senator Ekwunife’s election

THE senator representing Abia North, Chief Mao Ohuabunwa, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday expressed shock over the Appeal Court’s nullification of the March 2015 election declaring him winner.

Meanwhile, Senator Annie Okonkwo, who was initially nominated by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) listed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the Anambra Central Senatorial District election, has hailed the Court of Appeal’s verdict setting aside Uche  Ekwunife’s victory.

The Court had ordered a repeat of the Abia North Senatorial election, saying that the process was marred by irregularities.
Reacting to the development in a chat with The Guardian, Ohuabunwa expressed the optimism that his constituents would again give their mandate for his return to the Senate at the repeat election. By the court judgment, the embattled senator will again face former Abia State Governor, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu of the Progressives People’s Alliance (PPA) and Dr. David Ogba Onuoha-Bourdex of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

Ohuabunwa who had served two terms in the House of Representatives, counseled voters in Abia North to insist on electing somebody that already had legislative experience and specifically urged them to consider what he referred to as his effective representation during which he said he sponsored many bills.

For the Anambra Central Senatorial election, Annie Okonkwo described the Appeal Court judgment as proper, timely and natural, “because the constant beam of truth will always outshine the human burden of lies, darkness and deceit, whether political or otherwise.”

A statement signed by the directorate of Senator Annie Okonkwo Campaign Organisation, through its media adviser, Collins Steve Ugwu, said Ekwunife was not and should not have been the flag bearer of the party in that election.

He said:   “Now that the scales should have fallen off the eyes of the deceived, the manipulated and the manipulator, courtesy of our dedicated judiciary, the last hope of the oppressed for every committed democrat, we hoped that common sense would have prevailed even as an afterthought for personal recompense and public conscience.

We are therefore not amused that citizen Uche Ekwunife who ordinarily should be sobered by this clear constitutional declarations given the wisdom of her political experiences, appear unperturbed and unmindful of elementary party internal democratic norms as evident in her obvious contemplation to re-run in the yet-to-be scheduled re-election as candidate of our party, the PDP.

It calls for emphasis and we therefore so emphasise, that the party primaries by the PDP to select candidates for that election after the most rigorous, painful and costly processes for any senatorial zone in this country, arrived at Senator Annie Okonkwo as the most popular and validly nominated candidate of the PDP, ultimately endorsed and published as such by INEC, and expectantly wished by Anambra Central electorates to wear the victory cap, but for the reckless impunity of Aso Rock overlords then, which providence and nemesis has through our able judiciary mercifully crushed.

This judicial liberation for our people will not just be as short-lived as the impostors and their sponsors, but will be celebrated and sealed permanently when the Supreme Court of our land rules again on it coming January.

We are compelled therefore to make this clarifications for the records as we did earlier, before this voyage dance of impunity orchestrated by ready beats of foregone God fathers and mothers, that citizen Uche Ekwunife was and could not have been a candidate for that election in the first place, much less the winner, going by the extant and clear rules of engagement in party primaries as established by our constitution and guiding electoral laws.
“We therefore call on our teeming supporters and stakeholders to tarry patiently, and rightly ignore the annoying noise from habitual betrayers, because in politics, noisemakers will always have their space, but the will of the people will certainly always have their way.”