Fresh trouble is looming in the Imo State chapter of both the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as aspirants for the October 31 Imo North senatorial election have rejected the outcomes of the primaries of the two political parties.
In APC, the committee that conducted the September 3 primary election backed two candidates, while the national leadership of the party is backing the chairman of the election, Senator Surajudeen Basiru, who declared Frank Ibezim as the winner.
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Three members of the committee led by Alhaji Gana Nguma, have on their part declared Senator Ifeanyi Araraume as the winner of the election.
Our correspondent gathered that the parallel results after the conduct of the exercise by the two factions produced Ararume as the winner of one of the factions with a score of 22,944 votes, while Frank Ibezim emerged winner of the other faction with 13,637 votes.
However, the party had, in a statement signed by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, said the Basiru-chaired committee was the duly appointed one by the party’s caretaker committee chaired by Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State.
The statement maintained that only the outcome from the Basiru-led committee was tenable and acceptable to the party.
But Nguma, who spoke to newsmen in Owerri, said he and his group declared Ararume winner because the figures from the field on the day of the primaries showed that he actually won.
In a related development, a senatorial aspirant for the Imo North by-election on the PDP platform, Patrick Ndubueze, has described the primary conducted by the Charles Ugwu-led executive, which produced Emmanuel Okewulonu winner, as illegal, null and void.
The Ugwu-led executive had declared Okewulonu winner of the primary election with 609 votes while Ndubueze scored 27 votes.
Ndubueze, who spoke to newsmen in Owerri, said there were subsisting court cases barring such exercise from holding.
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