Ifeanyi Ubah drags PDP to court over Anambra governorship primary

Ifeanyi Ubah, a governorship aspirant on Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform in the forthcoming poll in Anambra, says only the court could stop his ambition.

He alleged that the party’s primary election conducted to pick its candidate for the poll was fraught with irregularities and that the party leadership had refused to address his complaints about it.

Ubah made this known at a news conference in Abuja on Tuesday and said that he would continue with his aspiration until his complaints were addressed by the party.

He said he would approach the court to seek his right after exhausting all the internal mechanisms to address the issues as stipulated in PDP constitution.

He said he had contacted party leaders, board of trustees members and also appeared before the party’s primary election appeal panel, but that his concerns had not been addressed.

“I will be going to court to seek redress; only the court will determine the party’s candidate or the party should come back to us and addresses the irregularities,” he said.

“They know that the person they have chosen has no requisite to be the party’s candidate. It is their responsibility to right the wrong.”

Ubah, who is the chairman of Capital Oil, said he would pursue the legal angle on the matter for himself and other Nigerians that may also be treated in the same manner in future.

“I am doing this not just because of me but because all the political parties will not act the same way PDP has done. If we continue to allow issues like this, people will continue to suffer over impunity,” he said.

Ubah said Oseloka Obaze, who was declared winner of the primary election and upheld by the party’s appeal panel, did not emerge through a transparent, free and fair means, describing the primary as “a fraudulent exercise”.

“They use that opportunity to smuggle in people. We have 326 wards in Anambra, and even if we had three delegates per wards, we will have 678 delegates, not 958.

“Also in the party’s Constitution there is what we call statutory delegates who are over 400, they were all cut off.

“What they did was that they gave black marks on the fingers of those they wanted in, and by the time they call you in and if you don’t have those marks they pushed you away.

“All complaints on these issues were ignored.’’

He accused former governor of the state, Peter Obi and Nyesom Wike, Rivers state governor, of imposing an unpopular candidate on the delegates.

“Sadly, an election which was supposed to provide a level-playing field for all seven aspirants cleared for the race turned to a dance of shame,” he said.

“All these represent the greatest act of impunity bearing in mind the fact that the party had began to gain sympathy from Nigerians.”

On the allegation that he was hobnobbing with other political parties, Ubah said as a businessman, he was free to relate with any political party and the federal government.