June 09, (THEWILL) – The Benue governorship rerun Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC), headed by Mr Joel Omajali, as Chairman and Secretary, Barr Emmanuel Maji, has distributed materials for a rerun of the governorship primary election in 9 local governments and 3 council wards in Benue State.
Omaji while addressing Returning Officers for the rerun exercise on Thursday at the APC State secretariat in Makurdi, said the materials were not distributed Wednesday, 8th June, 2022, owing to late arrival of the committee members to Makurdi.
“We arrived Makurdi very late because of the national assignment (APC convention) holding in Abuja. But the fact that we have to move round for this exercise, we decided to move from Abuja.
“Our mission here is to rerun elections in about nine local governments and three wards in Benue State. The areas we have to cover are Ogbadibo, Ushongo, Konshisha, Oju, Apa, Kwande, Agatu, Ohimini, Ado, Obi, Okpokwu, Apa. In Buruku local government, we have 3 wards: Mbaya, Mbapen; about 3 wards.
“This exercise is going to be brief because we are going to turn in our results back to Abuja by 5pm this evening. Today is the last day of all primaries, if we don’t do it now, that means Benue State will not have a candidate in APC.
“We are relying on technology and expecting that all the Returning Officers would turn in their results on WhatsApp if possible, so that we will collate our results as fast as possible and return it back to Abuja.
“So, I now Commission the State Organising Secretary to go ahead and distribute materials for this election.
“What took us to where we are today is that in the last exercise, INEC said that these materials were not available and for that purpose, we have made them available. These are registers that will be taken to various areas, INEC will observe them and we will go ahead.
“As Electoral Officers, you must provide the names of all officers that are supposed to take care of this election in various Local Governments. If you are there, while you are turning in your reports, ensure that you know the name of the INEC Officer on ground, the DSS Police and Civil Defence, that is very important”, the Chairman said.
Materials were also distributed by another committee for rerun of State House of Assembly primary election.
It will be recalled that some governorship aspirants including former national chairman of the PDP, Chief Barnabas Gemade, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondakaa (SAN) and Professor Terhemba Shija were dissatisfied with the conduct of the exercise and filed a petition before the governorship petition panel.
In its ruling, the panel committee, led by Princess Ozoama Onyema, decided and recommended the upholding of results in some local government and withholding results in 12 local government councils in the state.
In view of the above, the National Working Committee of the APC approved June 8th for the rerun of the exercise in Benue state to produce a governorship flag bearer ahead of next year’s general elections.
In the failed exercise, Revd Fr Hyacinth Iormem Alia was declared winner having polled the highest votes ahead of his opponents.
