BY HENRY UMORU & CHRIS OCHAYI
ABUJA—The controversy trailing the conduct of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, primaries took a different dimension as Kogi State chapter of the party yesterday rejected the cancellation of the governorship primaries in the state by the party’s national secretariat.

The National Working Committee, NWC, of the PDP had weekend passed a resolution directing the conduct of re-run primaries for the gubernatorial and senatorial seats in Kogi State as well as governorship primaries in Kano State.

Spokesman of PDP, Prof Rufai Ahmed Alkali, who announced the development in a statement, had attributed the annulment of the results to the need to provide a level playing field for all the aspirants.

“The NWC has also deliberated on the petitions from various contestants across the Federation as well as the reports of our Appeal Committee set up specifically to look into complaints from aspirants. The NWC also received and deliberated on the reports from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, who monitored the primaries,” he said.

But while protesting the cancellation at a briefing in Abuja, state chairman the party, Hassan Salau, said the primaries were free and fair and wondered why the results should be cancelled.

Salau said all the aspirants and their agents, including the  Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and Commissioner of Police in Kogi State, witnessed the election and even signed the final results sheets.

He said thereafter, copies of the results were distributed to the INEC officials and the agents of the aspirants for records, adding that “the winner of the governorship primaries, Alhaji Jibrin Isah, scored 361 votes against the 303 votes scored by Isah Kutepa who came second.”

He said allegations that there was blackout during the process was untenable as there was no power outage. He stressed further that the state party leadership even made provision for two standby generating sets in the event of power cut which never occurred.
According to him, “I have not seen the petition where it was alleged that there was no electricity on that day.

There was power throughout the time we were there. The governor was seated and everybody, including the aspirants and their agents, were there to confirm that the election was free and fair.

“The results of the election were signed by the agents of the aspirants , and copies were distributed to all concerned including the agents and the INEC officials. If there was any problem at all the state is supposed to have been informed. We only read about the cancellation on the pages of newspapers.

“In fact, the agents took the number of the first ballot paper to the last one before voting commenced. I am not a lawyer but I want to believe that what happened that day was a true reflection of how a primary election should be. We even got two generating sets as a backup and it was a fine outing for PDP on that day. Therefore we call for the results to be upheld.”

On whether he has made his observations known to the Acting National Chairman of the party, Dr Bello Haliru Mohammed, Salau said he has not received any letter from the party headquarters on the cancellation.

In his remarks the national ex-officio of the PDP in Kogi State, Chief John Odawn, said even if there was a petition to the Appeal panel, they ought to have heard from the two sides in the matter before taking a final decision.

Odawn said “a petition is not enough reason to cancel a primary that was free and fair. We were not given any opportunity to state our own side of the story.”

A member of the House of Representatives and a Senatorial aspirant, Hon Attai Aidoko Ali however queried why the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, could still countenance the conduct of rerun primaries after the deadline for the submission of lists of party candidates had passed.

Aidoko said: “There should be no further primaries because it was supposed to terminate on January 15, 2011 according to the Independent National Electoral Commission guidelines for the conduct of party primaries. There should be no further primaries if we want to respect the rules set up for the process.”

Other Kogi PDP leaders at the conference include the State Secretary Emmanuel Egwu, Hon Emmanuel Omebije (House of Assembly member) and local government chairmen  – Hon. Okolo Kani Benjamin (Dekina), Hon Vincent Baba (Ankpa), Hon Eneojo Peters Omachi (Ofu), Hon Musa Haruna (Idah), Hon. Rofo Asala (Yagba West), Hon. David Gwatana (Bassa) and Hon Gabriel Olofu (Olamaboro).