PDP Gov’ship stalemate ‘Electoral College to pick consensus candidate’ … as Akpabio loses bid on Udom. By Radar Newspaper / December 15, 2014/ Indications emerged weekend that the state governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio may apparently dumps his preferred 2015 successor and immediate past secretary to state government, Mr. Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, THE RADAR reports. A top state government official who confided in this paper, said that there are moves in the national headquarters of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to persuade the governor to surrender his choice candidate for a consensus candidate to emerge from the aggrieved 22 governorship aspirants of the party. This recent development, THE RADAR newspapers learnt, is not, however, unconnected to last week Federal High Court order restraining the PDP, its national chairman and national secretary from forwarding the name of Mr. Udom Emmanuel to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on account of the December 8, 2014, purported primaries of the party in Akwa Ibom state. Our source who is a former exco member of the state PDP and a frontline supporter of Governor Akpabio, further disclosed on condition of strictest anonymity that, “following the court order, things are now swinging against our preferred candidate (Udom) in Abuja. For instance, the presidency and national leadership of our party have been made to look into the petition of the 22 aggrieved aspirants and that of other stakeholders and leaders of our great party, including His Excellency, Arc. Victor Attah; Atuekong Don Etiebet and the rest. “We are optimistic that PDP will come out stronger at the end of the day. Painful as it is, Udom Emmanuel may certainly not fly the party’s ticket in 2015. We are considering a second option of consensus among the 22 others. “Currently, the party is thinking of conducting Electoral College among the 22 aspirants to bring out a consensus choice who will fly the 2015 flag in the interest of peace, harmony and unity among our party leaders in the state. “The presidency and the national leadership have said very strongly that the party cannot afford to lose Akwa Ibom state to opposition party and so, at this stage, wisdom demands that all warring factions sheathe their swords and follow the pathway of dialogue to resolve this impasse,” he advised. It would be recall that an Abuja High Court presided over by Honourable Justice Y. Halilu last Friday issued an interim injunction restraining the PDP and its national leadership from acting on the outcome of Akwa Ibom governorship primaries by submitting the name of the Udom Emmanuel who was declared winner of the poll. The order was sequel to the suit filed by one of the aggrieved 22 governorship aspirants, Chief Ime Ekanem. The court later adjourned to January 5, 2015 for hearing of the substantive matter, whereas, INEC deadline for political parties to submit names of their respective candidates for the 2015 general elections is December 25, 2014, which means, if the impasse is not resolved before December 25, PDP will not have a governorship candidate in Akwa Ibom. #ayaya
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 09:20:20 +0000
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