From Paul Osuyi, Asaba
The All Progressive Congress (APC) in Delta State on Thursday returned the Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege as the governorship candidate of the party for next year’s election.
Chairman of the electoral committee, Oyibo Nwaneri declared Omo-Agege as the party’s candidate after the primary election conducted in Asaba, the state capital.
A total of 1,235 delegates from the 25 local government areas were accredited for the election that was monitored by officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) led by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Monday Udoh-Tom.
However, 1,190 delegates voted for the sole aspirant while one invalid vote was recorded.
Declaring the results, the returning officer, Oyibo Nwaneri noted that the election had one contestant, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege.
“The winner of this election is Senator Ovie Omo-Agege who scored 1,190 valid votes out of a total accredited delegates of 1,235.
“This is to certify that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, having scored the highest number of valid votes is hereby declare winner of this primary election,” she declared.
Reacting, the party candidate applauded the conducted of APC faithful, and thanked all party officials and members for the confident reposed in him.
Omo-Agege said the task to rescue Delta State was not a tea party, but a task that would require all hands to be on deck.
He lamented that the state has experienced gross failure in the past seven years, noting that the failure of the PDP administration of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa does not know party lines.
“In the last seven and half years, Delta State has been misruled. We have had close to N900 billion but what is on ground is not commensurate.
“Our infrastructure are decaying, our youths are unemployed, our teachers are unpaid, and pensioners who have suffered to offer their services to the state are not paid their dues.
“The government has rather focus on things that do not add value to the lives of the people. The bad governance in the state is impacting on all irrespective of party affiliation.
“As we go into the campaigns, we have one thing in mind to rescue the state. We are going to focus on providing good governance, enduring peace and security which is what Deltans crave.
“As we seek to achieve this, it is not going to be a tea party, all hands must be deck. Okowa has failed and has therefore chosen someone to continue that failure of perpetuity in office but they will not succeed,” he said.