By Jennifer Y Omiloli with Agency report
The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the Ezza North West state constituency, Innocent Nomeh, has withdrawn from the supplementary election contest slated for Saturday, March 23.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the election originally scheduled for March 9 was cancelled because unidentified hoodlums burnt the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Registration Area Centre (RAC) at Umuoghara, Ezza North LGA of the state.
Nomeh, while briefing newsmen in Abakaliki, said that he withdrew after considering salient issues confronting APC members and candidates after its loss in the presidential and gubernatorial polls in the state.
“It was my genuine intention to represent my people at the House of Assembly after consulting with my family, friends and political associates.
“At the borderline of the whole issue is the unserious disposition of the APC in the state towards the election which it ultimately lost to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
“The APC was unserious during the electioneering campaigns and elections as its gubernatorial candidate even lost in his polling unit to the PDP.
“APC received serious electoral battering by the PDP as it substituted genuine candidates from its primaries until the courts reinstated some of them, including myself,” he said.
He remarked that it was clear that the APC was never serious in the election and ultimately its candidates still in the electoral race, engaging in a ‘wild goose chase.”
“We have been made vulnerable and politically incapacitated to win elections as the party leadership mismanaged funds and other logistics that could have enhanced our performances,” he said.
Nomeh said that after consulting his family and political associates, he decided to withdraw his membership of the APC, withdraw from the contest on March 23 and join the PDP.
“This decision is entirely mine, made out of my own volition without any coercion as I urge my supporters to take it with great courage.
“I also enjoin them to support me in this new quest to contribute to the state’s development as present members of the PDP,” he said.
Eze Nwachukwu, the APC state chairman however, told NAN that the party did not recognise Nomeh as its candidate for the election.
“We only recognise Emeka Nnoko as our candidate as Nomeh is on his own.
“We have not received any court order reinstating him as the candidate of the party and we stand on our decision,” he said.
Meanwhile, some aspirants who failed to secure the APC ticket to contest elective positions in Ebonyi urged the APC leadership to probe the deployment of funds released for all elections in the state.
The group, which addressed a press conference on Monday, March 18 in Abakaliki, accused Senator Sonni Ogbuoji, the Ebonyi APC governorship candidate, of anti-party activities and diverting funds released for the prosecution of all elective positions.
