By Gabriel Enogholase
Chairman of the Labour Party, Primary Election Committee, Mr. Samuel Omokaro has disowned Mr. Cyril Odibo as the party flag bearer insisting that the process that led to his emergence was faulty and unacceptable.

Odibo had emerged the party’s candidate after polling 98 votes to beat his opponent, Pastor Amos Areloegbe, who garnered 17 votes.

Omokaro, a former chairman of the party who spoke with journalists in Benin yesterday said, “I have tried to build Labour Party to be independent and remove it from a party of supporting party A or B, but some people believed in selling it to the highest bidder because of greed.

“I was a part of those (Committee) that screened governorship aspirants.  The acclaimed winner did not present himself for screening. As a matter of fact, I just knew him for the first time during the primary.

He alleged that an acting National Secretary of the party who he identified as Julius Amuri in connivance with some Abuja official manipulated the exercise, saying that as far as he is concerned, Pastor Amos Areloegbe was the only aspirant for the election because he obtained the N7.5 million nomination form and presented himself for screening.

“If they knew they would not give the ticket to Areloegbe, I did not see any reason why they will make him pass through the rigorous process. In the end, the boy was stabbed in the back. I don’t want to be a party to such thing,” Omokare said.

On his part, Areloegbe said: “I will be deceiving myself if I say I am very comfortable with the outcome. God hand must manifest in this matter because he sent me. I resigned from where I was working because God wanted me to save the State. I am still seeking the face of God on the next line of action.”