By Ndubuisi Orji
AHEAD of Saturday’s primaries of the All Progressives Congress(APC), the state publicity secretary of the party, Comrade Godwin Erhahon, has said that those planning to manipulate the exercise would be disappointed.
He assured that the exercise would be free, fair and credible.
There have being serious concern about the credibility of the process, following allegations that some party chieftains, working for a particular aspirant have been purchasing Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) from prospective delegates.
But Erhahon told Daily Sun in a telephone interview that desperate members of the party, who had been working to manipulate the process would be disappointed.
Erhahon said the plan of those involved was to clone the cards and issue it to their cronies, who would come to the venue of the primaries and impersonate the original delegates. The publicity secretary said he was aware that some persons have started camping delegates in hotels since last Monday and criticised the actions of some of the party’s members.
Although the PVC was originally to be used as a means of identification for delegates, he said that those who had mopped up the cards of delegates might just discover that they wasted their time, as the national leadership of the party may come up with another means of identification for the delegates.
Besides, he said those planning to impersonate genuine delegates would be fished out and dealt with by the law enforcement agents, noting that the photograph of delegates are already in the party’s register.
When asked to react to allegations by a former governorship aspirant on the party’s platform, Casley Omo-Irabor, that the national leadership of APC was working in league with the state government to manipulate the primaries, Erhahon said in as much as he did not want to join issues with anybody, the allegation was unfair to the party’s leadership.
He said: “The party’s national leadership is one with impeccable character. Nobody can discontinuance the integrity of Oyegun or President Muhammadu Buhari.
“What has been happening in the state for some time now is madness. Anybody who tries to link the national leadership to it is not fair to the national leadership.”
He added that it was in a bid to create a level playing field for all aspirants that the APC leadership insisted that nomination forms would be sold at the national level instead of the state.