The headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)Abuja has confirmed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries that produced Akanimo Udofia as a gubernatorial candidate were not overseen by commission officials.
The primary that produced former Niger Delta Affairs Minister, Godswill Akpabiussince the APC senator candidate in the state was not supervised by INEC either.
Both primaries were held around midnight on May 26 and June 9, respectively.
Thus, it means that APC may not have a gubernatorial candidate in Akwa Ibom state for the 2023 general election, and that the INEC does not recognize Mr. Akpabio as a candidate, as this newspaper previously reported.
Minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio.
INEC spokesman in Abuja, Festus Okoye, said there is no distinction between INEC at the national headquarters and those in the different states of the country.
“There is only one INEC that operates through its state offices at the state level,” Okoye told PREMIUM TIMES on Monday.
“When a political party wants to organize a primary, what the political party does is that it gives the INEC that mandatory 21-day notice of its intention to organize the party’s primary.
“Then he gives INEC the location and date of the primary. The commission will constitute a monitoring team for that particular state headed by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC),” added Mr. Okoye.
How INEC monitors the primaries
Mr. Okoye explained how INEC monitors party primaries.
“There is supposed to be a team from the Electoral and Party Monitoring Department (EPM) from the headquarters that is going to go to the state, but the team is going to report to the REC, which is going to lead them because it is the highest-ranking official. .
Only one team monitors the party’s primaries, he said.
“There is only one commission team. We make no distinction between the headquarters team and the state team,” Mr. Okoye said.
“For example, in a gubernatorial primary we send a deputy director or deputy director or even a director from the INEC headquarters. The director will inform the REC who is the highest ranking official in that particular state and the REC will lead the team that will go and monitor the gubernatorial or senatorial primaries of a particular political party.”
Mr. Okoye’s position validates a report submitted by the REC in Akwa Ibom, Mike Igini, on the matter.
The clarification became necessary following misinformation on social media that INEC headquarters had deployed officials from Abuja to monitor the contentious primaries and that INEC authorities distanced themselves from Mr. Igini.
Unhappy with the dramatic turn of events, some of APC’s supporters in Akwa Ibom, especially those belonging to the faction loyal to Akpabio, have been attacking Igini’s credibility.
“Igini works for INEC and he is not the president of INEC and he is not INEC”, Chris Ekong, one of the APC governor hopefuls in Akwa Ibom, allegedly told reporters in Uyo on Wednesday.
Mr. Ekong, a professor of economics at Uyo University, was commissioner for youth and sports when Mr. Akpabio was governor of Akwa Ibom.
“What I want to say to the people of Akwa Ibom is to forget this negative propaganda. Akwa Ibom APC has a candidate for governor, and he is Akan Udofia and by next week the flag will be delivered to him and when he picks it up we will bring it here,” Mr. Ekong said.
igini’s report
The Akwa Ibom REC, Mr. Igini, in the report he sent to INEC headquarters, explained what happened between the electoral commission and the Akwa Ibom APC on the day of the party’s gubernatorial primaries.
“We wish to inform that the APC Governor Primary scheduled for Thursday May 26, 2022 at Sheergrace Arena, Nsikak Eduok Avenue, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State did not take place at all,” Igini said in a letter to INEC. . headquarters in Abuja on May 27.
According to the report, the commission’s monitoring team led by Igini, along with Akwa Ibom Police Commissioner Andrew Amiengheme, arrived at the primary site for the third time at 6:45 pm and did not see anyone inside. the living room. .
The heads of the two federal agencies were informed that members of the APC electoral committee were mobbed by an angry group of APC members along a main road in Uyo.
State Security Services (SSS) operatives later rescued the APC election officials that night and took them to their facilities (SSS) in the city.
This newspaper last month reported how supporters of the two APC factions in Akwa Ibom fought for control of voting materials intended for holding the party’s primaries in the state.
Election Committee Chairman Tunde Ajibulu had told Mr. Igini over the phone that he could not leave the SSS office because he was traumatized and could not go ahead with the primaries.
Ajibulu reportedly told Igini that Sheergrace Arena was not the venue given to him by the party’s national office in Abuja to hold the gubernatorial primary, concluding that “all activities are postponed until I return to the Commission.
Mr. Igini at that time informed the journalists who were present at the scene. He left the place at about 10:30 pm that day.
The APC faction that is backed by Akpabio then held the party’s primaries around midnight in a different location, where Udofia, a man who had been in the party for less than a month, was declared the winner of the exercise.
Mr. Stephen Ntukekpo, President of APC, Akwa Ibom State Origin of the crisis
The Akwa Ibom APC crisis could be attributed to Stephen Ntukekpo, a man backed by Akpabio, who used falsified results from the APC congress in the state to obtain a court ruling that removed Austin Ekanem, the man who was validly elected as president of the APC. APC in Akwa Ibom.
Mr. Ekanem has appealed the court’s ruling.
When PREMIUM TIMES asked Mr. Ntukekpo about the falsified APC conference result, he said, “I did not author, I did not fabricate, I did not in any way produce the so-called conference result sheet.” .
“He was just a wannabe like anyone else,” he added.