By Judex Okoro, Calabar

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State is in the eye of the storm again. This time, the outcome of the party primaries and choice of deputy governorship candidate seem to have thrown spanner in the works.

Checks by Daily Sun revealed that the primaries into the House of Assembly, National Assembly, Governorship and the choice of Deputy Governorship candidate have opened a Pandora box within the party as discordant tunes and echoes of alleged unfair and unjust primaries have rent the air.

Aspirants kick over primaries

A good number of the aspirants have fallen out with the party leadership on the grounds that they were not given a fair share. To some of the aspirants, it is a crying shame that the level-playing ground promised all aspirants were non-existent just as the selection process was skewed in favour of “anointed candidates”.

A few, mostly appointees, who resigned to contest for the primary elections in line with 2022 Electoral Act’s guidelines, alleged that the governor jettisoned them after using them to boost his  image and curry favour at APC national level within the period of party electioneering.

Some of the aggrieved Ayade’s aides and aspirants are piqued that they were made to cough out between N4m and N52m to buy nomination forms for various positions ranging from councillor, House of Assembly, National Assembly to governorship based not only on the promises made to them by the governor but believing there would be free, fair and open contest as the opposition PDP did in the state. They accused the leadership of using every trick in the book to push through their “anointed candidates.”

Expressing disappointment at the way and manner the party handled the primary elections, one of the aspirants for Ikom/Boki federal House of Representatives, Cletus Obun, described the exercise as “a farcical display of political naivety.”

Obun, the former APC Vice chairman, Central Senatorial district, said: “The primary threw up the worst against the best in PDP. Therefore, it is safe to say that there is a plot to hand CRS back to PDP.

“Apart from the governorship primary, where there is quality and political weight, the candidacy in NASS and House of Assembly is a crowd of injured old players and amateurs. It is Enyimba against Brazil. We have ended the match before match day.”

Also one of Ayade’s aides, who ran for one of the federal legislative seats, expressed anger at the shoddy treatment meted out to him, saying the exercise was not transparent as promised by the party leadership.

The aide, who does not want his name on print, said the party leadership just sat down somewhere and wrote down names of candidates and called on them to go and buy nomination forms.

“I can tell you authouritatively that there was nothing like election in APC. What happened was simply a selection processes where the party leadership anointed candidates and discreetly empowered the panel members to go and deliver.

“The worst was that some of us were promised to be national delegates and later our names were removed, thereby losing in all fronts. However, I can tell you a lot of APC members, especially the old members are not happy and threatening to defect at the right time.”

All these complaints are gradually snowballing into litigations, distrust, anti-party activities and may lead to subsequent defection of some stalwarts who feel aggrieved.

Already, one of the governorship aspirants, Sen John Owan Enoh, has instituted a case in  a Federal High Court, Calabar in Suit No.FHC/CA/061/2022 between him and APC, INEC and Sen Bassey Edet Otu challenging the process that threw up the third defendant and governorship candidate, Sen Bassey Edet Otu. The litigation, has somewhat kept the party and its supporters on tenterhooks.

Owan wants the Court to determine whether “Bassey Otu was qualified to participate in the APC May 26, 2022 in Cross River State governorship primaries having not been cleared by the Screening Committee of the party and with regard to the provisions of Articles 3, 14.15, 16 and 19 (6) of the Constitution of the APC for the process of nomination of candidates and pursuant to Section 84(3) of the Electoral Act and Section 177 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.”

Owan further wants the court to determine whether Otu, “having been disqualified by the Screening Committee and Screening Appeal Committee for questionable academic credentials and failure to produce his first school leaving certificate nor his West African School Certificates, ought to have participated in the election primaries.

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“To determine whether the organising secretary has overriding power to clear the Bassey Otu, who was disqualified by the Screening Committee and the Screening Appeal Committee, being the bodies responsible for the clearance of aspirants for governorship primaries and whether such clearance by an individual to participate in the party governorship primaries did not constitute a breach of the Constitution of the APC.”

Brouhaha over nomination of deputy governorship candidate

Even when the dust raised by some aspirants are yet to settle and in spite of the ongoing legal battle between Sen Owan Enoh and Sen Otu, some key stakeholders have again raised eye-brows over the choice of Peter Odey, the Leader of the House of Assembly,  as the running mate to the governorship candidate, Sen Bassey Otu.

The stakeholders including Chief Utum Eteng, Joe Etene, Anthony Effiom, Emmanuel Eyo, Ofem Mbang, Esu Ene, Lawrence Edu, Ekpenyong Akiba and Owa Owa all legal practitioners and in the directorate of legal unit, Sen Bassey Otu Campaign Organisation, have expressed worry that the choice of Odey may jeopardise the chances of Otu and APC if the legal tussle between PDP and the 21 lawmakers including Odey, that defected to APC is not resolved in their (lawmakers) favour at Appeal Court.

Recall that PDP had instituted a case with Suit No::FHC/ABJ/CS/976 at the Federal High Court Abuja challenging the defection of 20 lawmakers including 18 members of the Cross River State House of Assembly and two members of the House of Representatives from PDP to APC. Delivering judgment on March 21, 2022, Justice Taiwo Taiwo ruled that the defection of the lawmakers was “illegal and unconstitutional” and therefore ordered that they should “vacate their respective offices as provided under sections 68 (1) (g) and 109 (1) (9) of the 1999 Constitution.” Though the affected lawmakers have appealed in Appeal No: CA/ABJ/CS/400/2022, sources revealed that the APC, as a party, has not appealed against the judgment.

However, in their joint legal opinion dated July 2, 2022 and signed by the above-listed stakeholders in Bassey Otu’s directorate of legal unit, they agree in unison that going by the Justice Taiwo Taiwo judgment and the pending Appeal thereto the affidavit through APC denying their membership of the party, APC cannot present the affected lawmakers in the 2023 elections. They added that “the appeal and stay of execution do not, in any way, act as stay of execution of the Appeal judgment, implying that the judgment is still subsisting and binding on all parties.”

They further argued that the mere filling and entry of an appeal without more has no legal effect on the judgment that is still subsiding, adding that by the extant Rules of the Court of Appeal, they (the lawmakers) have 45 days to file their brief of Appeal, adding that “it would be suicidal for APC to refuse or neglect to act otherwise in checking the status of the affected lawmakers more so the fact that the party did not appeal against the judgment.”

They advised the lawmakers to expedite action if they have not filed their brief to do so in prosecuting the appeal diligently.  They, therefore, warned that “it would be encumbering the electoral victory of APC if one of the lawmakers (appellants) is nominated as a running mate to the party governorship candidate, Bassey Otu, and then the Court later upholds the decision of the lower court on Appeal.”

Dismissing the legal opinion of the above-named stakeholders that Odey’s candidacy would put out the party on a limb, one of the campaign managers of Peter-Odey-for-Deputy-Governor, Mtufam Eddy Monjok, said there is no cause for alarm as the party’s legal unit must have through all the court processes before putting forward Odey for the deputy governorship position.

Eddy, who hails from Ogoja local government area, stated that those opposing Odey are the same party members who are also eyeing the same deputy governorship slot and therefore out to discredit the choice for their selfish interest.

He said: “The choice of Odey is not bad. Those harbouring fears of court disqualification need not worry because all issues were considered before settling for him. Besides, Odey was screened among other aspirants and he was among the three names forwarded to Prince Otu to choose from and Otu settled for him. Since then, the duo have been working together and consulting.

“So, the insinuation in some quarters that Odey was single-handed ly imposed on the governorship candidate is totally false and an attempt to create disaffection among party members. Odey has been a loyal party man and was denied the opportunity to run the last Senatorial primaries in which Dr Stephen ran with Se. Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe. So, if the party has chosen him this time, then, we expect our people to queue into the project.”

Reconciliation Committee to the rescue

Determined to address some issues and reach out to the aggrieved members, the party leadership decided to set up a 9-man reconciliation committee to dialogue with all aggrieved members.

The state Chairman of the party, Alphonsus Eba, who inaugurated the committee, announced Dr Pius Tabi-Tawo as Chairman and Sen. Florence Ita-Giwa as an alternate-chairman with Dr Peter Ojie as Secretary of the committee.

Explaining that members were carefully chosen based on their political track records, Eba tasked the committee to reconcile all aggrieved members to ensure the party emerged stronger and united ahead of the 2023 polls.

Responding on behalf of his colleagues, Mr Tabi-Tawo promised to “pacify all the aggrieved members and restore their confidence in the party and its leadership.”