Onoja, Abu petitions committee over House of Reps primaries in Benue, say figures allocated

From Dooshima Terkura, Makurdi

Two Aspirants contesting for the Otukpo/Ohimini Federal Constituency in the just concluded House of Representatives primaries in Benue State, Mr Lawrence Onoja and Andrew Agbo Abu have described the conduct of the election as fraudulent saying votes were allocated.

Lawrence Onoja, son of retired General Lawrence Onoja, stated this when he spoke to newsmen at the APC secretariat where, he alongside others, submitted their petition.

The duo alleged that materials were taken to the Deputy Governor’s residence in Otukpo and then handed over to Blessing Onuh, David Mark’s daughter.

They claimed that materials were later diverted to a hotel where figures were allocated.

He said “Zoning has always existed in the constituency, it has been two terms for Ohimini and two for Otukpo. Otukpo is finishing its second term, unfortunately the incumbent is someone who has been boasting that she has the money to buy it all and to a large extent she has succeeded in doing that.”

Onoja said “On the day of the primary when everyone has gone into the field for the election, first of all, there was no accreditation of members or agents, nothing was done and the materials were taken to the residence of the Deputy Governor and handed over to Blessing Onuh and she went to Ochaocho Hotel room 006 to be precise where they sat and wrote all the results.

“She claimed that I scored 925 while in my own ward, during the mock election since materials did not come there, I scored more than that. She gave herself 17,000 votes but if you go by the record, the total number of registered voters for both Otukpo and Ohimini is slightly above 15,000. So, how did she score 17,000?

“So, am here to state it categorically that there was no primaries in Otukpo/Ohimini. No material was taken to the local governments. We are bitter and insist that the party internal processes should be adhered to.

“I have been a party man for 27 years and a member of APC since its inception, so we expect the party hierarchy to call me if such a thing happened but to allow such a fraudulent thing take place is very ‘callous’ and ‘unfortunate.”

Onoja further stated that “The electorates are very angry and there was even a protest in Otukpo that it should be Ohimini turn. If Blessing is so honoured, they should give her something else like Minister or senate but what we rotate, it is not right to shortchange Ohimini as a whole. This is my grouse over this matter.

“I have submitted my petition and I’m hoping that justice will be served. It is a gross misconduct and violation of the party and INEC regulations.

“Announcing results in a private place is wrong. We appeal that the national Secretariat to take this as a very serious issue. If zoning is applied in some cases, it should also, apply in another”, Lawrence insisted.

Also, Andrew Abu fumed at the development stating that what happened was an arbitration of democracy.

He said, “Some persons think they are too powerful so they abscond with materials to a hotel while our supporters were waiting eagerly for primaries to take place. My appeal to the national leadership of the party and Mr. President is that we can not condone this injustice, the seat should be rotated and we have general election ahead if the party is not careful it may suffer defeats.

“They should address this anomaly because as far as am concerned, there was no primary election but illegal selecrion in Ohimini/Otukpo federal Constituency”.