Just in: Drama in Edo, APC pulls out of election peace accord

Edo State Governorship election may be under a serious threat as two major parties are not willing to sign a peace accord.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday said it is not prepared to sign the peace accord organised for contending political parties ahead of the September 21 governorship election.

This is coming barely an hour to the signing of the accord.

The party’s position also came 12 hours after Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki said his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) might not sign the peace accord.

Obaseki who spoke while receiving the Chairman of the Presidential Peace Committee, former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, said the party had lost faith in the police and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to supervise and conduct the election respectively.

Addressing a press conference at the party secretariat, APC State Chairman Emperor Jarret Tenebe said the reasons for their declining to sign among others was that for over two months after a police inspector Onuh Akor who was the orderly to the candidate of the party, Sen Monday Okpebholo was shot and killed along Airport Road, nobody has been arrested and prosecuted, despite claims by the former Commissioner of Police, Funsho who “told Nigerians that the command had the names of those who murdered Inspector Onuh Akor at the Benin airport.”

He said instead of them being arrested, Governor Godwin Obaseki is allegedly keeping them in the government house.

Tenebe said, “This failure of the police has emboldened the State Governor, Godwin Obaseki and his Peoples Democratic Party to attack members of our political party at rally grounds and in their private business premises ceaselessly.”

He claimed that the governor has made inflammatory statements that have undermined his position as the Chief Security Officer of the State.

He chronicled the various attacks the APC campaign team have suffered in different communities Akoko-Edo, Etsako Central, Esan West local government area while mobilising supporters for the election.

“In the wake of this very worrisome and dangerous trend, Governor Obaseki kept mute and refused to condemn the attacks as the Chief Security Officer of the state. Instead, one Odion Olaye, the Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress in Edo State, while in the company of Obaseki, openly threatened the country that, “Nigeria will burn if INEC fails to declare the PDP candidate, Asue Ighodalo as the winner of the September 21, 2024 gubernatorial election.”

He mentioned several other chieftains of the PDP who he alleged have publicly boasted that they would do anything and go away with it and that the party’s petition to the police about these incidents with the names of suspects attached have not been treated.

He said “The summary of these episodes is the unwillingness of Obaseki to embrace peace and the refusal of the security agencies to guarantee a peaceful environment for the conduct of September 21st, 2024 scheduled election.”

As part of its demand to sign the peace accord, Tenebe said the police should be seen to taking steps to declare those fingered in the killing of the police allegedly being hidden in government.

Court upholds Akpata as LP’s guber candidate in Edo

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has dismissed a suit seeking to disqualify former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Anthony Akpata as the gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party in the September 21 election.

The appellate Court held that the suit instituted by an aggrieved governorship aspirant, Kenneth Imasuangbon lacked cogent and verifiable evidence in the allegations against Akpata.

In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Okon Abang, the Court of Appeal held among others, that Imasuangbon failed to explore the inter-conflict resolution mechanism of the Labour Party before rushing to Court.

Subsequently, the Court held that his case was premature in law and could not be entertained on the ground that conditions precedents were not met.

The unanimous judgment of the 3-man panel of Justices also held that the appellant failed to tender the disputed results of the February 23 primary election of the party which he claimed to have won.

READ ALSO:

• Kenya Court blocks billionaire Adani’s $1.85B takeover project of Nairobi Airport
• Nigeria’s crude oil production rose to 1.35m bpd in August – OPEC
• Naira fall: Court freezes N548.6m belonging to ‘ByBit, KuCoin’ Nigerian crypto users

Justice Abang said the claim of Imasuangbon that he was not given official results by the Labour Party cannot hold water because he had his agent at the primary election.

To worsen the situation, the court said the appellant did not call as a witness, a single delegate from those he claimed voted for him at the primary election.

The Court further said that Imansuangbon’s allegations that Akpata did not sign the Indemnity Form is statute-barred and therefore lacked jurisdiction.

The Appeal Court therefore upheld the judgment of the Federal High Court in Benin delivered by Justice Babatunde Quadiri which had earlier dismissed Imasuangbon’s suit for want of merit.

Imasuangbon had in the suit prayed that Akpata be disqualified as Labour Party gubernatorial candidate on the allegations that he was not qualified to have participated in the poll.

He asked for an order from the court to compel the Labour Party to withdraw the candidacy of Akpata and submit his own name as the right candidate having come second in the primary election.

Court upholds Akpata as LP’s guber candidate in Edo

LP crisis: Aisha Yesufu replies Abure, calls him shameless liar

A social critic and good governance advocate, Aisha Yesufu, has labelled the erstwhile National Chairman of the Labour Party, LP, Mr Julius Abure, a barefaced liar.

She tackled Abure for allegedly making false claims about the party funds, saying the LP chieftain thought this was an analogue age.

Yesufu in an X post said, ” he thinks one can lie shamelessly without being fact-checked”.

Her outburst came after Abure claim that Yesufu and Pastor Itua Ighodalo were responsible for managing the party’s presidential candidate campaign funds in the 2023 general election.

Abure made the claims amid rumours that he misappropriated and siphoned the party’s funds, claiming that the party never had access to the accounts opened for donations to support Obi’s candidacy.

READ ALSO:

• Tension in Borno as inmates escape after severe flooding
• One killed in Ukraine drone attacks on Russia
• Boyfriend who burnt Ugandan Olympic runner Rebecca Cheptegei dies

He had insisted that Yesufu and Ighodalo were the only signatories to the accounts.

“The party was never involved in the distribution of those resources. Our interest was to see how we could produce a president for the party. How it was done was not our concern. Hence, we gave them free rein. We allowed them to entrust their resources to whomever they wanted. We followed them loyally by allowing them to administer the campaign funds,” Abure said.

However, Yesufu dug up Abure’s post on X in 2022, in which he asked people to take ownership of the party’s campaign by donating a minimum of N1,000 to the Labour Party account.

Aisha blasted the embattled party chairman, saying, “Julius Abure thinks we are still in 1980 where one can lie shamelessly without being fact-checked,” Yesufu posted on X.

LP crisis: Aisha Yesufu replies Abure, calls him shameless liar