By Emmanuel Aziken & Henry Umoru
ABUJA — The former Minister of Health, Prof. ABC Nwosu has accused former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme of erring in his account of the emergence of Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju as the 1999 governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,  in Anambra State.

Nwosu made the claim yesterday as he provided a 1998 letter written by Major General A. B. Mamman, who chaired the PDP Governorship Panel in which he accused Dr. Mbadinuju of allegedly claiming to have rigged the second governorship primaries in which Nwosu was not involved.

Mbadinuju yesterday promptly disowned the assertion saying he could not have said it and further affirmed that he won the 1998 primaries fair and square.

The Anambra PDP mess was re-opened after Dr. Ekwueme in an interview with Saturday Vanguard denied foisting his one time aide, Dr. Mbadinuju as the 1999 governorship candidate of the PDP at the expense of Prof. Nwosu who allegedly won the first primaries. Ekwueme further said that Nwosu by a party agreement, had been precluded from contesting the governorship primaries.

*ABC Nwosu

That claim by Ekwueme was denied by Nwosu in a statement made available to Vanguard yesterday.

Tow primaries

“I know for a fact that there were two primaries – the first primary was held on the 21st of December 1998, same day with other PDP gubernatorial primaries nationwide. It was a “direct primary” held in all Local Government Areas of Anambra State and supervised by the national electoral committee for Anambra State led by Major General A.B. Mamman (retd). Other members of the committee were Senator (later Hon. Minister) Sanusi Daggash, and Dr. Mrs. (later Hon. Minister) Becky Igwe,” Nwosu said yesterday.

According to him, “I won the ‘direct primaries’ convincingly and was presented with a certificate of return by the committee, which along with newspaper publications of my electoral victory are still in my possession.”

Prof. Nwosu said that “a week later, the PDP National Electoral Appeal Panel annulled my election victory on a petition written by one of Dr. Mbadinuju’s associates after which a new “closed door” primary was conducted by another committee led by Alhaji Murtala Ashorobi, on 28th December 1998 not in the open, but at Ikenga Hotels Awka.”

He said that Dr. Ekwueme’s narrative that Mbadinuju won the primary must have been of the second primary of December 28.

Knowing the truth

“Ndi Anambra and others know the truth and are aware of General A.B. Mamman’s damning letter on this subject which is attached hereto,” he said.

In denying Dr. Ekwueme’s claim that he, Nwosu contested the governorship primary against the spirit of an agreement that precluded him from contesting, he said:

“When therefore and with who in the PDP did I enter into an agreement to drop my gubernatorial ambition?”

Affirming that he had put the fraud behind and moved on, Nwosu pleaded with the former vice-president not to further aggravate the sore, saying:

“My plea to him is that it is best for all concerned if he should refrain from making certain comments on the subject because the PDP Anambra State, and indeed the State, are yet to recover fully from this PDP wrong-doing of 1998.”

In the attached letter from Gen. Mamman dated December 17, 1998 directed to the Chairman of the PDP National Electoral Appeal Panel, Mamman who was head of the Anambra governorship panel of the PDP was quoted as flaying the nomination of Mbadiniju as the party’s candidate.

In the letter, Mamman said Mbadiniju admitted to him that he bought the result sheets for N1 million at the party’s national secretariat.

Mbadinuju denies  allegation

Mbadinuju strongly denied the assertion yesterday telling Vanguard: “It is not true, there was nothing like that. ABC Nwosu is my friend. A.B. Mamman may be a nice man, but at the end of the day, I won by 96 per  cent of the votes and you don’t get it anywhere.”

Asked if that was the second ballot, he said: “Yes, because there was one that was aborted and we had to come to Abuja and Solomon Lar (national chairman) and the rest of his team annulled it and asked us to go and repeat and it was out of that repetition that ABC  Nwosu and his group didn’t know. In fact, they came back and were drinking wine already, thinking that everything was done, but in Abuja, Lar said we should go home and repeat and we went there and repeated and I won.”