Jime, Waku, others reject Ortom as Benue APC guber candidate
Emulate APC delegates, group urges Nigerians
our governorship aspirants of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State have rejected the emergence of former minister of trade and investment Dr Samuel Ortom as the party’s governorship candidate in the state.
The four aspirants are Emmanuel Jime, Prof Steve Ugbah, Sen Joseph Kennedy Waku and Mike Iyordye.
Addressing a press briefing in Abuja, the four aspirants called on the party’s national leadership to cancel the exercise that produced Ortom as the party’s candidate for peace and the party’s success.
They said the matter must be resolved before the Wednesday deadline given by the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC).
Speaking at the briefing, Prof Ugbah said: “Until the day, Wednesday, 10th December, 2014, that we heard a self-sponsored radio announcement to the effect that the PDP Chieftain(Ortom) was APC Consensus governorship candidate, we did not know that he joined the APC after failing woefully in the PDP primaries a few days earlier.
“And until we heard that our state chairman planned to forward his name, this past weekend, to the national secretariat and INEC, we did not believe that this candidate had even joined the Benue guber race on the platform of the APC, least of all, becoming our consensus candidate.
“Consensus is the outcome of a meeting or a series of meetings. Yet, at no time did we meet with this consensus candidate or even met to discuss the issue.”
They expressed concern about the position of the national leadership of the party, saying: “What is surprising is that the national secretariat of our party, too, has bought into these undemocratic schemes of the Benue APC leadership.”
They appealed to the party’s leadership to let them “produce an acceptable candidate through transparent processes that are laid down by our great party, the APC.” Nigerian electorates have been urged to emulate the delegates who resisted all forms of inducement and followed their conscience to vote for General Muhammadu Buhari as the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate.
A group, Buhari Friends Organisation Network, made the call in a statement yesterday signed by its national coordinator, Saint Athanasius Okon.
Recalling it appealed to the delegates few days to the convention to shun money politics, the group now called on Nigerian voters to vote for Buhari in 2015.
The statement said Buhari has a lot to offer the country, saying he promised to make all the necessary sacrifices for the development of the country.
The statement read in part: “With peculiar circumstances and challenges occasioned by the past and present selfish political rulers , we need leaders this time around, as we are tired of rulers that are selfish and heavily corrupt. We are tired of pseudo-politicians and pretenders that masquerade themselves in the corridors of power, who claimed to be democrats. We are tired of those who see stealing of commonwealth to be different from official corruption.
“As we called on the APC National delegates to please do the needful and vote for the right person to be our symbol for the necessary change, which they graciously obliged us, today we are extending same request to the collective Nigerian electorates of not less than 70 million to please buy into the campaign for positive change.”